If you haven't seen Body Worlds before, I'll explain a bit about it: The brainchild of Dr. Gunther Von Hagens, an Austrian doctor of medicine, who wanted to educate and show the public the wonders of human anatomy, Body Worlds is a travelling exhibition of real human specimens who have been "plastinated" in a chemical process which removed the body tissue and replaces it with an exact plastic replica. The result is an awe inspiring detailed 3 dimensional model of how the human body fits together and what you would really look like under the skin. It's sort of like a human body cross section book, but in real life and much more detailed. Over 40 million people have viewed a Body Worlds exhibition, and it has been a massive success with exhibitions in over 100 cities worldwide from 1995 to the present. Although some of the images you are seeing around this post may not be to your liking, I highly recommend going to experience any exhibition you can find near you.
Both of the pervious exhibitions I had seen were about the human body, one being Pulse and the other Vital, so they particularly focused on the circulatory system and internal organs respectively, however this exhibition was entitled "Animal Inside Out" and featured all sorts of organisms from the kingdom animalia, including things from pigeons and frogs to a giraffe and an elephant! I encouraged a couple friends who were also interested to come with me, even though one was actually a vegetarian! The variety of organisms was one for he things I enjoyed most about this exhibition as they differed from the same human forms (normally you aren't allowed to take photographs of the plastinates to respect protect the identities of the plastinated human's, but as this was animals photography was allowed so I took many pictures to post on the blog)
I have included a section which I found interesting at the very beginning of the exhibition on the process of plastination, invented by Dr. Von Hagens himself, using Acetone to dissolve the soluble fats and then replacing the structures with Silicon which enters the cells through a vacuum pump at which point they can position the limbs and tissues how they need and will then harden the body for display.
The first plastinate we saw was of a Dog, posed catching a frisbee, jumping in midair. The muscle groups which you can see are particularly accentuated are the neck, shoulder and jaw muscles and this makes sense as the bulk of a dog's power is from its back and shoulders as it had the evolutionary advantage of using its mouth to bite and neck to balance during running (such as is particularly noticeable in a greyhound running at full speed) the red groups are the muscle bulk and the white parts are tendons, connective tissues and joints, such as is visible on the front paws and wrists. 
The next three exhibits were great to see in a row, three ostriches showing the different layers of muscle bone and circulatory system that was present all over the body. Comparing all of these techniques made me appreciate just how much of a complex organism like an Ostrich is. Muscles interwoven with bone and blood vessels branching out through the muscles in a seemingly arbitrary pattern, but maintaining constant blood flow to all aerobic reactions needing to take place in the ostrich's muscles. The genes and hormones that regulate these processes of where things grow and defining boundaries between tissue types must be so complex, no wonder there must be so much information in every nucleus of the cell. 
I find it fascinating to take my knowledge of biological systems and how they have helped shape the physiology of the organisms in the exhibition and then think deeper about the millions of billions of biochemical processes that would have to have taken place to make all of this possible, and then even further down to think about how the laws of physics and characteristics of chemicals and elements have shaped the world we live in, and how if they had been at all different would I still be writing this as I am now?
One of my favourite plastination techniques Von Hagen uses is the plastination of capillaries, as it makes you realise just how dense your network of blood vessels is, that if all the capillaries are used, there is a surface just as the skin would be covering the entire shape of the horse. No cell in the body is less than 0.1 micrometers from a capillary. you may as well be looking at the horse's head actually dyed red, but in fact if you were to use a microscope you would see that every single capillary is separate and gaps are left for cells. The Ostrich Circulatory system mentioned and shown above was only showing the major blood vessels, as if it has been done like the horse you would only see a red ostrich.
The next two exhibits were two of the most impressive: a Brown Bear and a Gorilla, both gigantic and imposing in stature with their huge muscle groups on their shoulders and torso, evolved and adapted to be high ranking in their food chains over millions of years. one of the only Human palatinates was featured in this exhibit next to the Gorilla, to show how closely related we were but also how different our physical bodies are. Unfortunately photography of the human palatinate is not allowed, but i was able to take a picture of the human brain, and the difference between the size of the gorilla's and the human's is what was extraordinary, the human's was not much bigger, yet we are the only species capable of language and communication. I suppose it was slightly misleading as the usual way the comparison is made is by brain size in relation body weight, but it made an impact.
The biggest two plastinations I have ever seen were left until last: an elephant and a pair of giraffes. the giraffe was so tall, and was split directly down the middle to expose the internal organs from behind. the elephant was expanded, with each layer of tissue being slid away from those under it to make it seem even larger than a normal african elephant. This technique also exposed the muscles and parts of bones or arteries which would not normally be shown as they are buried between layers or at least are not seen easily on the surface. The entire brain and nervous system was laid out underneath the elephant at it's feet, immediately made me realise just how much distance a nerve pulse must have to travel to get from the elephant's brain to it's foot and all the way back in a movement- would this time difference make a slight lag? Would we perceive the elephant's foot as moving after a noticeable delay once the elephant had thought to move it's foot? The brain itself was huge, but in comparison to the body size, had nothing on the human brain, of course. i have ridden an asian elephant in Thailand, and I do remember feeling as though they had some intelligent understanding, more than i have ever felt that a horse or cow had. Their trunks have a finger like feeling appendage to the end of it which they pass far above their head in search of bananas they know you have and (their favourite) a giant leek-like vegetable, which they would crunch through on a walk and you could feel the force and noise of the crunches through the vibrations in the back of their necks where you sat.
The second of the pair of Giraffes was a clever way to display an animal; it was slices of plastinated sections of giraffe suspended from the ceiling in the shape of a giraffe, so you could look at the layers and follow specific organ systems or tracks all the way through the body as the lights shone through.
This exhibit was another great success for body worlds in my opinion, and I think that anyone with a a keen interest in animals, humans, physiology, biology or even life in general should go to see this exhibition, I can't recommend it enough.
One of my favourite plastination techniques Von Hagen uses is the plastination of capillaries, as it makes you realise just how dense your network of blood vessels is, that if all the capillaries are used, there is a surface just as the skin would be covering the entire shape of the horse. No cell in the body is less than 0.1 micrometers from a capillary. you may as well be looking at the horse's head actually dyed red, but in fact if you were to use a microscope you would see that every single capillary is separate and gaps are left for cells. The Ostrich Circulatory system mentioned and shown above was only showing the major blood vessels, as if it has been done like the horse you would only see a red ostrich.
The next two exhibits were two of the most impressive: a Brown Bear and a Gorilla, both gigantic and imposing in stature with their huge muscle groups on their shoulders and torso, evolved and adapted to be high ranking in their food chains over millions of years. one of the only Human palatinates was featured in this exhibit next to the Gorilla, to show how closely related we were but also how different our physical bodies are. Unfortunately photography of the human palatinate is not allowed, but i was able to take a picture of the human brain, and the difference between the size of the gorilla's and the human's is what was extraordinary, the human's was not much bigger, yet we are the only species capable of language and communication. I suppose it was slightly misleading as the usual way the comparison is made is by brain size in relation body weight, but it made an impact.
The biggest two plastinations I have ever seen were left until last: an elephant and a pair of giraffes. the giraffe was so tall, and was split directly down the middle to expose the internal organs from behind. the elephant was expanded, with each layer of tissue being slid away from those under it to make it seem even larger than a normal african elephant. This technique also exposed the muscles and parts of bones or arteries which would not normally be shown as they are buried between layers or at least are not seen easily on the surface. The entire brain and nervous system was laid out underneath the elephant at it's feet, immediately made me realise just how much distance a nerve pulse must have to travel to get from the elephant's brain to it's foot and all the way back in a movement- would this time difference make a slight lag? Would we perceive the elephant's foot as moving after a noticeable delay once the elephant had thought to move it's foot? The brain itself was huge, but in comparison to the body size, had nothing on the human brain, of course. i have ridden an asian elephant in Thailand, and I do remember feeling as though they had some intelligent understanding, more than i have ever felt that a horse or cow had. Their trunks have a finger like feeling appendage to the end of it which they pass far above their head in search of bananas they know you have and (their favourite) a giant leek-like vegetable, which they would crunch through on a walk and you could feel the force and noise of the crunches through the vibrations in the back of their necks where you sat.
The second of the pair of Giraffes was a clever way to display an animal; it was slices of plastinated sections of giraffe suspended from the ceiling in the shape of a giraffe, so you could look at the layers and follow specific organ systems or tracks all the way through the body as the lights shone through.This exhibit was another great success for body worlds in my opinion, and I think that anyone with a a keen interest in animals, humans, physiology, biology or even life in general should go to see this exhibition, I can't recommend it enough.
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