Body exhibit
is a real eye-opener

Kids Stuff
By William Feldman

Welcome to Kids Stuff. Today‘s column includes unique facts about the human body.
The facts come from a new exhibit called Bodies, The Exhibition, which is open daily for a limited engagement at the Xanadu Theatre located inside Trump Taj Mahal, located at 1000 Boardwalk at Virginia Avenue in Atlantic City.
Bodies, The Exhibition has models of the whole body and specific partial specimens, along with real, preserved organs. You will also see how our skeleton and muscular system work in conjunction with each other. In fact, later that day I ran into a group of high school students, whom I did not know, who mentioned that their science teacher recommended this exhibit to prepare them for their cat anatomy class in the fall.
Also, I read they have a special children’s audio tour available, along with four age-specific teacher’s guides from elementary to post-graduate levels. They recommend kids be escorted with a teacher or parent as an adult guide.
Furthermore, most of the people touring when I was there were families with young kids to kids about 17.
I had a chance a few years ago to see Body Worlds in Philadelphia, which was basically the same idea. However, I liked this exhibit a little better because it was not as large and overwhelming, so it kept my awareness level high and helped my ability to retain some of the details. As I walked around I recorded some facts that I thought my readers would enjoy.
I thought the points about how bad cigarettes are for the human body are always important to remember, so I decided to write about this first.
SMOKING WILL KILL YOU
I could not believe this horrific fact: On average, a pack of cigarettes takes two hours and 20 minutes off of your life. They have a large sign that states, "We would like you to be around longer. Leave your cigarettes at this gallery and stop smoking now." It points out that harmful debris in the lung inhaled as smoke or environmental pollutants can lead to a breakdown of lung tissue and debilitating disease.
I had to get special permission to print these pictures of the lungs. Please take notice of the smoker’s black lung vs. the normal non-smoker’s lung. If these pictures deter one kid from smoking or just make one person quit, this column was a huge success.
I thought this information on the lungs would also be interesting to read. The respiratory system is divided into the conducting division, which directs air in and out of the airways, and the respiratory division, where gas exchange occurs. By age 70, you will have taken at least 600 million breaths.
I enjoyed this part of the exhibit because this was a review from one of my biology classes. Humans are vertebrates, a category of animals with a spinal column. Whales also belong to this subphylum in addition to fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds. While each type of vertebrate is unique, they all have a head, ribs, vertebral column and a tail. In both humans and whales bony structure, the scapula is a triangular bone that articulates with two bones, the clavicle and the humerus. It forms part of the shoulder girdle that attaches the upper limb to the torso.
KEEP IT MOVING . . .
The next exhibit, Movement and Posture, I found incredible, from all of my past science fair projects. Basically, the movement of our bodies is due to the continual contraction of muscles to keep us upright despite gravity, so we do not fall to the ground. Muscles of the lower limb are the largest of the body and make us bipedal (bi means two, pedal means feet) and mobile. These muscles include: gluteus maximus, quadriceps femoris and gastrocnemius (calf).
The muscles of the upper limb work together to perform the simple task of writing or lifting. They include the deltoid, biceps and brachialradialis and supinators.
Learning about the human brain and how it affects everything we do is incredible.
The limbic system is a group of deep brain structures that contribute to acts associated with survival, such as eating, drinking, reproduction and emotional expression.
Hippocampus is an important part of the limbic system and essential for the formation of short term memory. It is one of the regions first affected by Alzheimer’s disease.
Amygdala, located directly in front of the hippocampus, has a strong link to the olfactory, or smell, system and is key to the expression of emotions. It causes us to feel fear or rage in order to defend ourselves.
The septal area is thought to be a reward center and may be important in addictive behavior.
The hypothalamus connects to all parts of the limbic system. It regulates the production of hormones and causes visceral changes according to emotional responses including increased blood pressure when frightened and blushing when embarrassed.
WATER WATER EVERYWHERE
The human brain is approximately 80 percent water. Brain activity produces enough electrical energy to light a 10-watt light bulb.
Girls’ brains account for 2.5 percent of their body weight whereas boys’ brains account for 2 percent.
And you can’t forget what the tin man wanted — a heart. They had a display that showed in detail the difference between a healthy heart and a sick heart.
I always hear in the news about the spleen but I was not sure of its function.
The spleen is located high in the left upper portion of the abdomen. In adults it serves to filter blood and fight disease throughout life. Red blood cells squeeze through the narrow pores in the spleen where older, more brittle cells are destroyed.
The spleen contains the largest concentration of lymphatic tissue in the body and assists the immune system in isolating and destroying harmful organisms. The spleen forms white blood cells that help protect the body from harmful organisms. Because of that, an enlarged spleen or megalosplenia is often a sign of an underlying problem such as an infection, liver disease, and blood cancers.
The most common causes of an enlargement are: malaria, a disease endemic to mosquito infected topical and subtropical areas that affect the body’s red blood cells. The Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis, also causes enlargement of the spleen. If the spleen ruptures due to infection, it must be removed in emergency surgery. Removal of the spleen is not life-threatening but may lead to a weakened immune system.
THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM
The blood transports everything our cells need to sustain life. No cell in our body lies more than a few millimeters from a blood vessel. The specimens in this gallery were prepared by a technique called corrosion casting. The blood vessels were first injected with a colored polymer that hardens. The remaining body tissue is then chemically removed, revealing a delicate matrix that supports our blood.
Here are some other awesome trivia facts:
* Every drop of blood in the body passes through the heart once per minute.
* Human babies have 300 bones, while adults have 206.
* Children’s bones grow faster in the springtime.
* If all of the muscles in the body worked together, you could lift 10 tons.
* There are more than 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.
* The brain requires 20 percent of the body’s total blood supply.
By the time you finished reading all of this, you must have had the same question I did — how do they preserve the body? The answer is by polymer preservation preparation. That answer needed to be explained to me.
A human specimen is temporarily preserved to stop decay. The specimen is dissected to feature specific systemic structures. This dissection is immersed in acetone to evacuate all body water. The dehydrogenated specimen is placed in a silicon polymer bath under a sealed vacuum chamber. Acetone leaves the body in gas form and is replaced by the silicon polymer on a deeper cellular level. The silicone polymer hardens in curing the permanently preserved specimen with structures intact and is ready for examination and study.
The most important thing I learned from both exhibits is that some individual donated their body, out of kindness, so that others, whom they do not even know, hopefully will be able to learn to take care of their health (bodies), make wise choices (no smoking, drinking or drugs) and live longer.
For more information on this exhibit, go to http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/bodies.html or for tickets, call 1-800-736-1420. ••
Columnist William Feldman can be contacted by e-mail at wmkidscolumn@aol.com