Did you know?

– Right handed people live, on average nine years longer than left handed people.
– Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie.
– Babies are born without kneecaps.

It’s amazing what trivial facts you can learn over a weekend, especially when you make a trip to ‘Bodies – The Exhibition’.

I braved the hype and found myself confronted with pale human skin draped across a clinical white table like an oversized piece of leather. The arm curved upwards, draped across a face that presumably wasn’t there. A child stood next to me, chubby fingers pressed against the protective glass box – eyes wide and inquisitive. “But dad, it’s not REAL is it, it can’t be… ?”

Oh, the innocence of youth. Every human exhibit at Earls Court’s ‘Bodies – The Exhibition’ is real. Full sized human bodies have been dissected and preserved in a shocking look at the phenomena we call the human body. It has received mixed responses since the April 12th opening but for someone who won’t sit through the ‘ghost train’ at the fair, I enjoyed it immensely.

It not only lets the skeleton out of the closet… it lets the bone, marrow, nerves, tendons and vital bodily organs out too. Forget ‘The London Dungeon’ my lovelies – this is education at it’s best.

Of all the exhibits, the skin disturbed me the most. I’d never wondered what I’d look like skinned; now I know. Whilst it wasn’t pretty, something drew me in; it is awe inspiring and humbling to see your insides on the outside and shocked or not, I couldn’t help but read every scientific explanation thoroughly.

The journey through the exhibition is a gradual one… visitors walk through nine galleries at a pace that suits them. Each section contains bodies built up from the skeleton outwards. It’s no morgue – the corpses are positioned mid-action. Sportsmen running, reaching and stretching their inner workings.

I expected to be engulfed by a clinical smell but luckily the air was clear. The preservation process replaces fluids and fats with odourless, non- toxic silicone polymers. This means no wafts of decomposing flesh but also makes the human bodies look like painted plastic models. Barbie and Ken beware.

The fact of the matter is, they aren’t models – they are real people who once laughed across a table with loved ones, walked to work and brushed their teeth before bed. Or so we assume. There was a distinct lack of information about the people behind the blood and bone and an overwhelming number of questions in the ‘Comment Books’ referred to this. To be honest, I wondered the same but in an exhibition geared towards education and science, personal ‘stories’ may have clouded the biological facts.

I am notoriously squeamish but I found this addictive. The brightly coloured exhibits in the cardiovascular section enthralling. For a moment I thought I was in the middle of a human shaped coral reef. The foetal section came with a warning but I’m glad I ventured in. Some people may protest against displaying unborn babies but the sight of the tiny tot’s features will give many youngsters a lot to think about. I challenge anyone not to walk out questioning his or her views on abortion.

Above all, the exhibition alerted me to the way my innards work together. When I down a pint, head out on a bender and choose the sofa over the gym. There’s nothing like a few layers of fat, a cancerous growth and a smoker’s blackened lungs close up to send you on the road to health. In an overweight and stressed society, this can only be a good thing.

There’s no real scare factor, you won’t hear screams and it will make a small dent in your pocket but this is one science lesson I suggest you take.

Oh, and just in case you didn’t know… when a breast feeding woman eats garlic, her baby will suckle longer. She’ll also have no love life due to the pong – but that’s a whole other exhibition.