LOS ANGELES, July 2 (UPI) -- A controversial museum exhibit from Frankfurt, Germany, displaying preserved whole bodies with exposed organs and bones, has opened in Los Angeles.
"Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies" made its U.S. debut Friday at the California Science Center, generating the same interest among 14 million viewers who have already seen the exhibit in other parts of the world, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"Body Worlds" shows more than 200 human specimens, about 25 of them whole bodies, skinned, dissected and laid open to show bone, muscle and nerve, and placed on view in lifelike poses.
While some viewers may be shocked, German scientist Gunther von Hagens, who created the preservation technology used in the specimens, said the exhibit is about education.
"First of all, it is health education, by specifically comparing healthy and diseased organs," he said.
One exhibit shows a man's blackened lungs and clogged arteries from smoking and other excesses, another shows a woman eight months pregnant and her unborn baby.
