Visitors to a controversial travelling exhibit opening today at the Telus World of Science will have an educational out-of-body experience, organizers boast.
Body Worlds 1 features 200 specimens of real human bodies and body parts, preserved in plastic.
Each item has been dissected differently to reveal different organs, parts and to show effects of certain diseases such as the damage caused by smoking, and what obesity does to the human heart.
Some specimens — a man sitting on a skinless horse for instance — have been posed artistically, and others — an athletic man with large muscles posed like he is dribbling a basketball, offer up an educational lesson.
One room of the 10,000 square-foot exhibit is devoted to the science behind pregnancies that includes preserved fetuses and a pregnant woman who legally agreed to donate her body and fetus before she died eight months into her pregnancy.
More than 9,000 people have agreed to donate their bodies to Body Worlds to “help people understand preventative health care,” said Dr. Angelina Whalley, the show’s creative designer.
