A busy day for Google, as it soft-launches BodyBrowser (latest betas of Safari, Firefox and Chrome required.). Using a combination of HTML5 with the <canvas> tag with WebGL (essentially plugin-free OpenGL for 3D on the web), BodyBrowser makes the human body as accessible as a mapping application.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul on Dec 16, 2010 - 12 comments

Watch the skull “explode” and reconstruct! Zoom and spin the torso to expose a little or reveal everything! Get a grasp of the inner workings of the human shoulder! Get inside this head! Interactive three dimensional views of various anatomical structures.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Dec 11, 2008 - 14 comments

The pancreas is a completely crummy organ...... so which parts of the human body could you design better? Interesting article and comments.
posted by Rumple on Nov 3, 2007 - 71 comments

Historical anatomy models were a marriage of art and science. From about the 13th to the 19th centuries, exquisite wax models were the state of the art. Florence's La Specola anatomical wax museum houses the works of master artists, such as Ercole Lelli, Anna Morandi, and Clemente Susini. The later years of wax models tended towards the grotesque: moulage and depictions of pathological conditions and physical anomalies. Due to the labor required and delicacy of wax models, papier-mâché became the favored production method in the 19th century, partly due to the ability to dissect the models. Over time, models became more stylized to protect the delicate sensibilities of the public. Today, models are again shocking the public with extreme realism.
posted by madamjujujive on Aug 30, 2006 - 18 comments

Offended academic smashes German doctor's "Plastination" exhibit in London "I decided I would walk into the exhibition with a hammer and smash up the most expensive exhibit to make the point that you cannot turn bodies into commercial exhibits." This exhibit was discussed on March 21.
posted by planetkyoto on Mar 29, 2002 - 29 comments

Skinless wonders... "Art or anatomy? An exhibition of flayed corpses in Berlin has been greeted with popular acclaim and moral indignation." They plastinate ("a vacuum process in which biological specimens are impregnated with a reactive polymer") and pose the bodies, which they get from various places, including a Siberian madhouse. The show is coming to Britain.
posted by pracowity on May 20, 2001 - 11 comments