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South Los Angeles resident Erlyne Toney-Alvarez, 67, had always planned to be cremated when she died. Simple. Inexpensive. Graves, she said, are a waste of land occupied by the dead. Then she saw the intricately plastinated bodies at the Body Worlds exhibit at the California Science Center -- bodies that had been stripped of their fat, filled with plastics and shown off in all their muscular, organic and anatomical glory for the world to see in traveling shows. Now that, she thought, is the way she wants to go. "I was so excited," she said of seeing the exhibit with...

NEW YORK, May 30, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The New York State Attorney General’s office has ordered the owners of a “plastinated” body display in New York to post signs at the entrance of the exhibit telling visitors that it is not possible to confirm whether the bodies displayed were those of executed Chinese prisoners who may have been victims of torture. The order came last Thursday after the company, Premier Exhibitions, admitted it had no way of knowing the exact origin of the bodies, all of which were obtained in China, a country that executes more of its citizens...

...Sure enough, that's what Body Worlds is all about. The cadavers, (relatively) whole or in parts, are fascinating, sometimes beautiful and inspiring, and remarkably low in ick factor. They could be plastic or ceramic; when you see them, you have to keep reminding yourself that they're dead people, and then you get to pat yourself on the back for how well you're taking this. A practically skinless man is leaping over a hurdle, though given the lack of clearance, he is perpetually headed toward really hurting his private parts. His aerodynamically sliced brain, however, seems like overkill. There's no apparent...

"Bodies...the Exhibition" has drawn thousands to the Cincinnati Museum Center, but now the company behind it is part of an investigation. The New York Attorney General's Office tells Local 12, its looking into possible misrepresentations concerning how some of those human bodies were obtained in China. Museum center officials say they're approaching 40,000 tickets sold in just 15 days. Now, the company profiting from the bodies is now under investigation. The New York State Attorney General's Office has issued subpoenas for organizers at Premier Exhibitions Incorporated. That's the same company the museum center is using to put bodies on display...

(NEW YORK) — The doctor behind the "Body Worlds" exhibits that show cadavers in different poses says he has stopped using bodies from China for fear that some of them may be executed prisoners, ABC News reported on Friday. Dr. Gunther von Hagens told ABC's "20/20" that he had to destroy some bodies he had received from China because they had injuries that made him suspect they were execution victims. The doctor invented a liquid plastic process that preserves bodies. He has put many of them on display in museum exhibits that show them in poses like playing poker or...

(SACRAMENTO) -- Cars packed the parking lot of a shuttered CompUSA store one recent weekday afternoon as schoolchildren, health professionals and the just plain curious paid $24 apiece to stare at a score of plasticized, dissected human cadavers and roomfuls of preserved body parts. The cadavers are displayed dramatically, with layers of skin and muscle peeled back to reveal internal organs, bones, blood vessels and nerves. The exhibition, with bodies posed as if playing a violin, swinging a golf club or performing other tasks, provoked plenty of hushed comments.   "Where do they come from?" a young woman asked a...

The bodies are coming, and with them some questions that will not go away.    "Bodies ... The Exhibition,' featuring 15 full-body human corpses from China that have been preserved by a process called "plastination," is scheduled to open at The Carnegie Science Center in October for a seven-month run. The cadavers are peeled of their skin and arranged in poses -- kicking a soccer ball, setting up a tennis serve -- alongside 200 other body parts and specimens, including embryos and fetuses from 9 to 32 weeks gestation, all plasticized. It is one of three major traveling exhibits that...

Channel 4 is to broadcast a documentary showing a human corpse being hung on a cross to depict Christ's suffering. Anatomist Gunther von Hagens will use a real body to show how people died when crucified in the 90-minute film.

Now I'm thinking. When will we have our first famous "plastinized" celebrity? Will it be Michael Jackson albeit his missing nose? At least he wouldn't be frozen like a giant popsicle in a cryogenic chamber. What about Bill Clinton? Well, I believe he could become an instant hit given his history at the White House behind closed doors. I'm sure people will want to take a closer look at Bill Clinton's "plastinized" body and see what the big deal was about just like

It's easy to see why the Science Museum's new show -- "Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies" -- is drawing record crowds. The "plastinated" human cadavers and body parts produce gasps of wonder at the body's intricate complexity. . . .As I walked through the show this week, I could see how visitors might find its "whole-body specimens" beautiful in a strange way. They are lean and vigorous -- physically perfect in a way few museum-goers seemed to be. Many of the "plastinates" draw double takes: the female archer, who looks like the goddess of the hunt,...

Exposing Shocking Horrors Inside Sujiatun Concentration Camp By Ji Da Epoch Times Staff Mar 11, 2006 A reporter from China who worked for a Japanese television news agency and specialized in Chinese news recently escaped to the United States after being wanted in China for reporting on controversial issues. (The Epoch Times) High-res image (1200 x 900 px, 72 dpi) [ Warning: graphic photos below ] Falun Gong Practitioners a Cheap Source of Black Market Organs In recent years, international organ buying and selling markets have had extreme shortages. As the world's most populous country with the death penalty, China...