Body Worlds III

The St Louis Science Center recently hosted Dr Gunther von Hagens' Body Words III exhibition. This uses real, donated, preserved human (& other species) bodies that have been preserved using 'Plastination', which is a method of specimen preservation invented by Dr von Hagens in 1977.

The exhibition caused some controversy when it first arrived in St Louis with opinion divided as to whether younger people should see it since 'everything' is on display & the way that the bodies have been displayed could be disconcerting. Personally, I didn't see what all the fuss was about since I thought that the aim of the exhibition to educate the public about the inner workings of the human body & show the effects of poor health, good health, & lifestyle choices were important. It is not often that you can see how doing certain things affects your body. For example, there were slices though a person that was overweight (the display also included a synopsis of how & why the person died young), & the lungs of a smoker & non-smoker laid side by side showing the massive difference in condition. There were also displays of people that had needed replacement parts (e.g. hip joints) & that had been patched up with nuts, bolts, & plates after being in an accident.

There were also some animals on display (including a Camel & calf) & in a screened off area near the end of the exhibition a number of Human Embryos & Foetuses showing how Humans develop in the womb. This was fascinating but also quite sad at the same time because, obviously, none of the preserved bodies had managed to survive. All deaths were natural & I guess in an odd sort of way all the exhibits will now 'live' forever.

One of the really cool things that we got to do was to hold some preserved organs, including a kidney & liver. It was really surprising to still be able to feel the difference in texture after preservation & that these were once functioning items within a living human being!

After leaving the exhibition we had a look around the other areas of the Science Center that we hadn't seen during previous visits. We watched a really cool plastics demo where the properties of plastics were explained & various 'experiments' were conducted to show how this material can behave, & we also had a go on most of the hands-on exhibits that included common optical illusions & other things to show how the brain can be 'confused'. All good fun!
Body Words III picture courtesy KMOV

Smucker’s Stars on Ice

Beth really likes ice skating & we were lucky enough to get tickets from work to watch the St Louis leg of the Smucker’s 'Stars on Ice' show. This is an ice skating tour performed by various ice skating Olympic & World Champions, with the tour being headlined by Sasha Cohen this year. The event comprised a number dance routines, typically performed by a pair of skaters, however, some of the routines (typically at the end of each session) included all of the skaters. There were plenty of impressive ice-skating moves & props were often used to follow the theme of the routine. The ice-rink light show was also pretty good with the lighting looking like it was coming up through the ice & often changing in time with the music or skating moves.

In addition to Sasha Cohen, other performers include Olympic Gold Medalists Jamie Salé & David Pelletier, World Champion Todd Eldredge, two-time Olympic Bronze Medalists Xue Shen & Hongbo Zhao, World Champion Yuka Sato, two-time World Silver Medalists Marie-France Dubeuil & Patrice Lauzon, World Bronze Medalists Kyoko Ina & John Zimmerman, six-time Canadian Champion Jennifer Robinson, & two-time World Bronze Medalist Michael Weiss. Cheryl & Beth particularly liked Michael Weiss, especially when he performed a routine (which included throwing his shirt into the audience) to Big & Rich's 'Ride a Horse, Save a Cowboy'. The show was very entertaining & well produced with the obviously talented skaters putting in some really good performances that we all enjoyed.

St Louis Auto Show 2008

New car time again! This year the largest automobile event in the St. Louis area featured more than 600 new cars, trucks, SUVs & concept vehicles from over 30 manufacturers. Unfortunately the new production version of the Dodge Challenger was formerly launched at the Chicago show a week after St Louis & so wasn't on display, but there were some new & concept vehicles at the show including the 2009 Dodge Ram Pickup, Chrysler Nassau Concept, 2008 Pontiac G8, 2009 Ford Flex, & my favorite, the Chevrolet Camaro Concept. The latter vehicle looked absolutely stunning & is Chevrolet's answer to the Ford Mustang & Dodge Charger. Not to be outdone, Ford brought along some of their limited edition Mustangs, including the 'Bullit' & Shelby GT500KR (which is a 540HP special-edition GT500 commemorating the 40th anniversary of the original 'King of the Road').