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The independent student media site of West Linn High School

wlhsNOW

The independent student media site of West Linn High School

wlhsNOW

OMSI shows a poetic approach to anatomy

If you have ever wondered what really goes on in people’s heads, then you should definitely see the new exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Body Worlds & The Brain is making an appearance in Portland, using verses to exhibit plastinated bodies. This exhibit began Nov. 7, and it will run until March 4.

The idea for Body Worlds came from a researcher at the University of Heidelberg’s Institute of Anatomy when he found a new, better way to preserve body parts and teach anatomy by plastination.

“I thought that it was very informative and interesting,” Mary Grace Sleeper, sophomore, said. “I thought I’d be grossed out by it, but I wasn’t.”

This exhibit has been shown all around the world, from South Korea and Switzerland to the United States. There have been many different versions of Body Worlds as well, not all founded by Gunther Von Hagens, the creator of Body Worlds. I visited one in Redding, Calif.

In Redding, the exhibit was similar to the one at OMSI, but different in many ways as well. They had an entire room dedicated to human fetuses at different stages of development. Another exhibit showed was a comparison between a healthy lung and a smoker’s lung, as well as other healthy and unhealthy organs. The exhibits were shown in a more informative way, and there was lots of light flowing through huge windows.

At OMSI, the exhibit was shown in a room with no windows, so it was pretty dark. The way they showed the exhibits was unique: There weren’t captions and paragraphs next to the exhibits, they displayed them in poem form instead. The moment you walked in they had a real brain on a pedestal. Throughout the exhibit there were various quotes about life. OMSI also had a giraffe completely plastinated, along with a few other animals. They showed many healthy and unhealthy organs, as well as posed plastinated people.

Many can agree that it gives you a unique way of learning new things about the human body.

“I was always confused on how the body fit together,” Freyja Doherty, sophomore, said. “This helped a lot, and I got to see how the body and everything inside of it connected. When the people still had skin or a face it was a little creepy, though.”

The tickets cost between $17 and $25 per person. I would definitely recommend the exhibit to anyone who is interested in the body, and is open to a new way to learn about it. I really enjoyed the exhibit, and I would go back again.

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Sophie Pesetti, Reporter
Sophie, a freshman, was born in California and at the age of 9 moved to West Linn. As far as hobbies go, she loves to cook and bake. Some of her favorite things to bake are chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes. She is musically experienced in the world of piano and played for about 10 years. Some of her other hobbies include drawing, watching her favorite TV show “The Closer”, and listening to music, mostly Lady Gaga. Sophie says that so far she loves high school and her favorite class is Clay Animation.
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OMSI shows a poetic approach to anatomy