BODIES . . . The Exhibit

Hello,

This morning I decided I would have the breakfast buffet instead of a bagel. I had bacon, sausage, hash browns, cheese blitz, watermelon, pear, peaches, and a strawberry danish. Yea I know I'm a pig.

After breakfast we headed over to Circus Circus the Adventure dome! My mom and brother rode two roller coasters there. I would never go on either of course lol I recorded them at the end of the second roller coaster and right when I was gonna press the button to stop recording my camera went black. Yeaaaa I should have packed those spare batteries. Luckily the gift shop inside the Adventure dome has a four pack of AA batteries!

So currently I am a Human Biology major at UCSD. I love anatomy and physiology ever since I took the class my junior year of high school. This is why we went to our next stop. The Luxor! You know, the big pyramid hotel with the sphinx? Home of the Bodies exhibit! For those of you that don't know what that is. "The Exhibition provides an intimate and informative view into the human body. Using an innovative preservation process, the Exhibition allows you to see and celebrate your body's inner beauty in ways you never dreamed possible. Over 200 actual human bodies and specimens, meticulously dissected and respectfully displayed, offer an unprecedented and wholly unique look into your amazing body." Of course we were not allowed to take photos or film any part of the exhibit. We started off in the skeletal system room and onto the muscular, nervous, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, reproductive, urinary, fetal development, and finished off in the treated body room. Sorry guys, but I did jot down some interesting facts!

1. The Palmar Arch: due to it's sensitivity and dexterity, the hands require a large blood supply. Even a small cut on a finger can be very messy.

2. Weak abdominal muscles lead to injuries throughout the skeletal system. So do your sit-ups!

3. Humans have the most evolved facial muscles of all mammals.

4. Girls brains account for 2.5% of their body weight. Boys brains account for 2% of their body weight.

5. Pulse is an artery wall stretching with each heart beat.

6. The brain requires 20% of the body's total blood supply.

7. Every drop of blood in the body passes through the heart once per minute.

8. To lose one pound you must burn 3,500 calories more than your body needs.

9. Steps to digest:
ingest
chew 10-30 times
swallow 4-8 seconds
churn 2-4 hours
absorb 3-5 hours
compact 10 hours - days
eliminate!

10. During the day the intervertabral discs compress and flatten but spring back during sleep. This is why you are shortest at the end of the day and tallest when you rise in the morning!

11. Fetal cells may remain within the mother decades after birth.

12. This was one of my favorite. These words were next to a glass box with a slit at the top large enough to insert cigarette boxes. "On average a box of cigarettes takes 3 hours and 40 minutes off of your life. We'd like you to be around longer. Leave your cigarettes here and stop smoking now."

Interesting facts? I hope there were some out of the 12 that are new to you! At the end there was a list of steps as to how they preserved the bodies for the exhibit. Of course I wrote them all down for you!

Process of Polymer Preservation
1. Human specimen is temporarily preserved to stop decay.
2. Specimen is dissected to feature specific systems & structures.
3. Dissection is immersed in acetone to evacuate all body water.
4. Dehydrated, the specimen is placed in a silicon polymer bath & sealed in a
vacuum chamber.
5. Under vacuum, acetone leaves the body in a gas form, replaced by silicone
polymer.
6. Silicone polymer hardens in curing.
7. The permanently preserved specimen with its structures intact, is ready for
             examination and study.

Overall I would say the exhibit was an eyeopening experience. I would tell you guys what my favorite specimen was, but I can't. I was fascinated by each and every one of them. I did really enjoy looking at the fetal development stages, the skull separated into its various bones, the various veins and arteries of the organs, and the treated bodies room (this showed metal implants that replaced corrupted joints and bones). With exhibits like this I am usually content with seeing it once in my life, but this one is different. I would go through the exhibit again! Now I just need to find some closer to home and someone to go with! I wish we could have touched it all, but I'd imagine that would be a nightmare with all the immature individuals and children out there. If you guys get the opportunity to go to a Bodies exhibit and have the stomach for it go! You'll love it!

It was still early in the afternoon when we finished (took about an hour and a half to get through the exhibit) so we walked on over to Mandalay Bay. Why? I saw in my LUSH catalog there was a LUSH in Mandalay Bay! Look how big this one looks compared to the one in La Jolla by school!

Some pretty bath bombs. This is the bubble bar I purchased. I'll show you how it works in the next blog post. I also purchased a massage bar! LUSH employees are always so friendly. This time Dezi helped me. Since I was asking about the massage bars she showed me various ones by massaging my hands and arms! Felt very nice. She wants to be a massage therapist one day so she shared some tips with me on how to give a good massage. I told her how I love getting massaged at the base of my skull and she got up and did it! Dezi wrote down the different products we looked at that I didn't purchase that way I will know for future visits!

We got back to the hotel and my brother and I just chilled in the room while our parents went to gamble. Read my book while sitting in the sun in our air conditioned room. Very relaxing till I tried to move realizing my tailbone was sore from how awkwardly I had been sitting on it.

Dinner was Bachi Burger again, but this time we went to a different location. I wasn't terribly hungry so I got an almond milk tea boba drink and edamame beans.

ALG