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November 29, 2005

Visible Human Project

This is not 'new' news, but I happened to stumble upon this in my wanderings and thought I would share...

A long time ago, a healthy male and healthy female decided to donate their bodies to the NIH (National Institute of Health). The NIH sliced up each body in tiny little intervals and photographed it. The results are complete, anatomically detailed, three-dimensional representations of the normal male and female bodies. This was called the Visible Human Project.

The computer portion of this project is now something we all expect. Computers can do that, it's easy. But the thing that strikes me is the human element of this project. It made me wonder about the donors. Who were they? How did they come to that decision? Did they know _how_ their bodies would be used when they decided to donate? Or did they just donate their bodies in good faith that something wonderful for all mankind would come of the results?

Whoever they were, they participated in a project that has helped many people. And that was (and still is) a very good thing.

Posted by BlueWolf on November 29, 2005 04:06 PM