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Stiff

the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Jun 15, 2016
Thinking about donating your body to science? Mary Roach tells you exactly how you might end up and the good you could do. People think donating your body to science means donating organs, and sometimes it does, but their are many other ways the dead help us living folks. Cadavers can be car crash dummies, which might sound cruel but really isn't, and they help save countless lives by helping car manufacturers build safer cars. People who's bodies have been donated to science can even help catch murderers. The University of Tennessee Medical Center has a program that studies body decomposition to help medical examiners be able to pinpoint what day, even what time of day, someone was murdered! Though Roach tells about modern day research she also gives a wonderfully intriguing history lesson about cadavers and anatomists. Body-snatching, guillotined heads, and tying bells around the fingers of the dead were all in a days work for anatomists in the past! Some think this is a topic best left unsaid but I agree with Roach, we should know all the amazing things people do for us even after they're dead. The scientists also need to be recognized for their incredible work. I strongly recommend reading this book, it's informative and funny while also giving you a healthy dose of respect for both the cadavers and the scientists.