In today(Monday)’s lecture, we focused on human body, including scientific advances and plastic surgery.

In science, human body has always been a fascinating topic to explore. Starting from thousands of years ago, past scientists have tried to dissect human bodies to learn the components within. Leonardo Da Vinci has performed private studies on human body by dissecting it and documented in his daily notes. In anatomy, plastination allows scientists to preserve body parts of all types of animals including human cadavers. As stated in Wikipedia.org, plastination removes all of the water and fat and any other excess liquid from an organ. Workers can put other liquid inside the body parts to preserve the organs. The result is standing body parts that can be examined by scientists. Since nothing else has been done to the body parts, the organs still contains the original physical and chemical properties. This practice does not limit to the muscles of a body. It can also be done to nerves system, cardiovascular system and digestive system. In elementary science book, the students often see a graph showing the different systems constantly running in our bodies. For example, for digestive system, one may see picture of a person with only month, esophagus, stomach, liver, and intestines. This graph is always two dimension and never three dimensions. Using plastination, one can see all of these systems in three dimensions and in physical form. To further understand the human body, scientists have dissected the human cadaver in to not only 5 major pieces but thousands of pieces. In Visible Human Project, a body is first washed and cleaned. It is then put into a mold to prevent it from moving around. Using a special cutting machine, the scientists can cut the body into thousands of pieces. The computer graphics can recreate this body by digitalizing each section. The end result is a video that contains thousands of cross sections of the body. The project gives a new perspective to how to view the internal organs of a human body.

Any display of the above examples has the purpose to educate the future generation. By providing a new view of human body, one can see more clearly of the amazing parts of our body. As stated above, human body is not only the focus of science but also a focus of art.

From ancient times to today, painters have painted human in his or her nature form. For example, Leonardo da Vinci has included many illustrations of human body in his works. Carl Johan Rehbinder posted many body parts on his websites as example of arts. Art and science can be combined in many works. The topic of human body is no exception. Plastic surgery is a perfect example of how art and science combine.

For years, humans have tried to pursue beauty. People have tried to put on make up, masks, and ear rings. The relatively new invention allow people to change the physical appearance of a human to make him or her more attractive. It is an art because it takes creativity to achieve the desire beauty. It is science because it requires the state of the art technology. A perfect example of plastic surgery can be seen in the movie shown before our DESMA class. In the movie, the mother of the protagonist tried to look “twenty years younger” by using paper clips and plastics. The result is less than appealing but somewhat effective.