How to Donate Your Body to Science

Donating your whole body to further science and medicine is probably the best thing you could do with your corpse. Which is why the industry that handles those gifts need regulating.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles to Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry.
So it's stuff you should know what's going. It's going, Okay,

(00:21):
I'm like a little congested. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm not sick.
I just congested you every mote when you're sick anyway,
so who would know I'm not though. Look, I've got
like tons of energy. Look well, I had that weird
cough for three weeks when I got back from Oklahoma.
It was very weird, and it wasn't like I was
never sick. It was just I think it was a
post nasal drip. Oh really, maybe from allergies or something.

(00:44):
I don't know. Maybe it's weird. I just couldn't kick it.
But I've kicked it. That's great, I can tell. Yeah. Uh, well,
I hope you feel better even though you're not sick. Thanks. Man.
I'm sure I'm not sick because if you were sick,
you could possibly die and don't ate your body to science.
It's definitely true. I could, and I may I probably will. Yeah.

(01:07):
When we did the organ donation podcast. Uh. Quite a
number of years ago this came up, and I think
we may have even said, let's do one on donating
your whole body, and here it is, years later, promised.
I can tell you that you me most decidedly wants
to donate your body to science. Yeah. I think I
do too. Yeah, it's it seems like a pretty great
thing to do, agreed. Um, especially if by the time

(01:30):
we all kick the bucket. Um, they have a regulatory
body overseeing this. It might be nice. It would be nice.
It makes me feel a little better. Yeah. Yeah, Well
they do point out the article like the thought of
some people are just turned off by the thought of
your body being cut up. Um, I don't care. No,

(01:50):
I think that that is the first mental hurdle that
you have to go past to say I think I
will donate my body to side. People are going to
be pouring over every part of your body naked while
you're dead on a table. And that's before they cut
you open, pull everything out, cut your hand off, your feet,

(02:13):
your head, all that stuff. Yeah, I think I would. Uh.
I wonder if you can have a stipulation like to
be covered and like have my privates covered. I have
American stipulation. That's not it. You're like, I have a
sock clause. Um. The other hurdle is uh, and I
never really thought about this was people just thinking about

(02:34):
like jerk medical students, like joking around and stuff. So
apparently that would be an enormous at least like doing
it for the class. It's an ethical breach. From what
I understand, it would be a very it's that's very taboo.
It has taken very seriously. It's a very poor taste. Yeah. Um.

(02:54):
And so if you say donate your body to a
university and ends up being used for anatomical study, you
among m gross anatomy students. Right, Um, Probably they're going
to know your name, they're going to know how you died.
They're going to refer to you and talk to you
by your name, so you will be a person to them.

(03:14):
You're not just a cadaver. You know, there's a lump
of meat. It sounds like they go out of their
way to be very respectful of the what you've done
for them. Right. They're they're taught to the the the
instructors set that example. Um. I read about one I
can't remember the university. It's sound that. There's a link
to it on the podcast page where um the instructor

(03:36):
hold they they make like a very big point of
pointing out that this is a gift. This person gave
you medical students, the gift of their cadaver so that
you can become a good doctor and save other people's
lives to make money. This is a huge gift and
it's to be treated with respect. And also frequently most

(03:56):
of these programs hold some sort of annual ceremony to
kind of thank all of the people who um, just
to honor them exactly the dead man. Yeah, it's pretty
great that people get loaded. I can't find a date,
no problem. So um, once you get past that hurdle,

(04:19):
the the idea of being poked and prodded and looked
at by medical students. Uh, there is another hurdle that
people face two uh religious types at least that you're
some religions, um prohibit this kind of thing. Who do
you know? Well Islam outright says no, you can't do that,
like the body is not to be cut up or

(04:41):
dissected or messed with after death. But they just said
organ donations okay, And I didn't see that that was
really under Sharia law. It doesn't look like you're supposed
to do anything to the dead body except take care
of it. Okay. I think that the stuff varies, though
I guess the thing I what I ran across said like, no,
you can't. You definitely can't donate your body. It didn't

(05:03):
say anything about donating organs, but from the context, it
would seem like organ donation of be a no no
as well. Jehovah's witness very famously do not accept or
donate blood, transfusions, or any parts of blood um. They
consider that blood is um. Basically, life is a gift
from God and you are not to be messing with

(05:23):
it with blood. But if all of the blood is
removed from the body to prevent it from being used
for transfusions, that body is a okay to go to
be donated to um, say like a medical school. As
far as Jehovah's Witnesses are concerned, most other religions are
like do it? Why would you not? Yeah? And I
love how this article says Baptist. They break it down

(05:45):
to like, I think the author may have been Baptist.
Do you think that's why I took because it's weirdest
not to say Christianity as a whole and to break
it down into denominations because he said Baptist and Catholic,
to say it's an act of charity. I never heard that.
I grew up Baptist. Oh maybe you missed that Sunday.
I didn't miss any Sundays, my friend didn't. Nope. Uh,

(06:08):
there aren't any like hard and fast statistics. Because body
donations can be donated to medical universities and colleges, to
the US government, wait, private firms who cares what it's
donated to. Surely there is a central authority that all
couldaver donations go through. Isn't that nuts? I don't think so.

(06:32):
It's totally nuts. Man. Think about it. Organ donation heavily regulated,
lots of oversight. No money is exchanging hands, or if
it is, it's like just the bare minimum. There's no
free market associated with this whatsoever. And everything goes through
the central authority. There's, at least on paper, there's a

(06:54):
group that knows everything that's going on, every organ that's
being transplanted. Right, makes total sense. But when you talk
about like bones, tendons, eyeballs, I don't know if those
are organ donation or not, but whole bodies. This stuff
is it's it's wrong to say that there is no

(07:14):
regulation or oversight. There is. It's just not anywhere near
as strict as organ donation. It's not taking nearly as
seriously well, I have a real problem with that. I
don't have a problem with that. I think the reason
why is because organ donations are being used to put
into other people. You're not taking a whole body donated
to science. It's only for purposes, that is what were

(07:38):
they They actually use parts on other people, like what
like bones, ligaments, tendons, but not like any sort of
tissue or organ like from a cadaver. No, not the
organ itself. But they are taking like like say a
bone from you, the dead guy who who donated your body.

(08:00):
It might end up in a living recipient. And you
may be like, totally fine with that. That's cool, right,
I want to help somebody. I didn't think i'd be
able to donate my organs, which is something we'll talk
about later. So that's great, that's helping him out. My
problem with it is is somebody may have profited from
your donation, and that's where my problem comes from. I

(08:22):
think donating your body to science or free reuse in
some way, shape or formance, going to help other people
is wonderful. But the fact that there is a and
there is not enough oversight or regulation, and that there
is a free market that's associated with this because it's
illegal to sell a body part, but you could say

(08:44):
charge of handling fee, and they frequently do. It leads
to this free market embody parts. That but that starts
out as a an act of love, a gift, a donation,
and then somewhere down the line somebody can profit from that.
That's horrible. But there is handling, Like transporting a body
isn't free. There isn't. It's true. So this, this oversight

(09:09):
committee or this this government agency should say, here's how
much it costs. We know how much an airline charges.
We have what we know how much it costs to
shipt a body. We know how much it get costs
to take a piece of bone a femur from somebody
and then transport it somewhere else. Right, here's how much
for a bone. I totally disagree with that. I mean,

(09:30):
let's think about organ procurement and like nobody's like there's
a free gray market that's growing up. Over organ procurement,
that's not what happens in this country. But when it
comes to tissue and stuff like that, it's a problem.
And it also here's the other thing, Chuck, It doesn't
just affect donors. It affects people who haven't donated their
body because year after year after year, some news article

(09:52):
comes up where some crematorium has been stealing body parts
and selling them in this gray market. SAME's true for organs,
though there's a black market. Yeah, it is true. I
just have the impression that is it's much harder to
do with organ procurement than it is with tissue, and
and tissue, like a whole body donation is considered tissue.

(10:14):
So sorry about that's right. So, I think the sentence
I was about to finish was there are somewhere around
twenty whole bodies donated per year. Uh they think in
the US, right, Yeah, But that's, like I said, uh,
not an exact number, because like you said, there is
no US government body watching all this, and so sounds

(10:37):
like a pretty decent amount, right. Apparently, No, Apparently there
is a real um dearth of of cadavers. Yeah, I
think a lot of people don't realize you can really
donate your whole body, and probably the idea seems a
little daunting or weird or whatever. So my hope is
that just from us talking about this, more people will

(10:57):
come to see it as something that's totally doable, because
from what I ran across, it really is totally doable.
Totally doable. All right, Well, we'll take a break here
and when we come back, we will talk a little
bit about the history of whole body donation. Stop. All right,

(11:29):
let's go back to the nineteenth century, early nineteenth century
and uh and Briton, they're using animals a lot of times,
or criminals, um, dead bodies of people that have been hanged. Well, yeah,
that was the only way that you could get your
hands on a cadaver as a medical school was if

(11:50):
it was the body of an executed criminal. That's right,
that was it. Or it's a pig or you know
some other animals. Right in a pig. Great, it's very
satisfying to cut into a pig with the scalpel everybody
knows they had. But you're not gonna learn as much
about the human body from cutting open a pig as
you would from cutting open a human body. So they
decided they needed more bodies because the UMU capital crimes

(12:15):
had had dropped, and so grave robbing became a common practice.
And uh, it still is a common practice. I don't
know about common, but it still happens in some parts
of the world. Back then they were called resurrectionists and UM,
a lot of times it was slaves that were being

(12:36):
having their graves robbed. Yeah, did you read the Smithsonian
article I sent you. Yeah, I read that one. And
then there's a documentary out to uh made by Dr
Shaun Utsey of h Virginia Commonwealth University go Rams called
Until the Well Runs Dry Medicine and the Exploitation of
Black bodies. And in it he talks about, um, someone

(12:58):
named Chris Baker who was a famous resurrectionists in Virginia
who would rob slave grades basically, and and it was robbing,
but they still there wasn't a crime because slaves had
no rights even after death right. And apparently they would
employ slaves to do this because slaves couldn't be arrested
for grave robbing slaves graves somehow, at least in Georgia. Well, yeah,

(13:22):
because you sent in this other case of what was
his name, Grandison Harris. Yeah, he was Medical College of
Georgia and Augusta. Then they discovered in nineteen nine and
one of the old buildings of do you remember that
a bunch of bones? Remember when that happened. I was
in high school, dude, didn't watch the news. Were you
like a tenth grader watching that was like eighth and

(13:44):
ninth grade. I just remember. I was like what because
when they found all these bones, they were like, what
is going on here? And then they figured out, oh,
these were old anatomical specimens that had been robbed from
the grave. Apparently he was employed because he was huge
and strong and he could rob a grave by himself,

(14:05):
which usually needed a few people to rob a grave.
But he was an efficient gray rubbing machine and made
a lot of money and educated himself and rose up
somewhat in white society, but was not really accepted by
either whites or blacks. Yeah he he Uh. The Smithsonian
article puts that he occupied a liminal place between black

(14:27):
and white society. He was shunned by everybody, but also
grudgingly respected and feared. Ye need article. Yeah, it was
pretty cool. Um. And this Chris Baker apparently Dr Shaun
Utsy says along with things like the Tuskegee experiments. He
says that he thinks that medical college is accepting grave
robbed bodies is of slaves is one of the reasons.

(14:50):
He says that, uh, some African Americans today have like
lingering suspicions about doctors in general. Yeah, makes sense, um,
And he says that that's a big reason that he
feels like Black people die more of preventable disease because
of a fear of doctors. Yeah, or maybe a mistrustum
of doctors after things like the t Skee experiments and

(15:12):
grave robbing of god slave graves. So it sort of
makes sense. So pretty interesting. He's the professor of UM,
I think the head of African American studies at UVA
or not uv A but Virginia COMMONWEALTHCU. So grave robbing
became very very widespread, not just in the UK, but

(15:33):
also an American I think you said, around the world, right, Yeah,
and just deals being like if you ever watched the Nick,
like the police make deals with the hospital, Like they
find a body, they get little money on the side.
It was just basically, how how can we get our
hands on a body? Exactly, and finally people figured out like, oh, well, this,
this prohibition on dissecting human bodies is leading to grave robbing, which,

(15:57):
now that we compared the two side by side, grave
robbing is way worse. So, um, let's just make it
if if somebody wants to donate their body or uh,
we can let that happen, and that's that change happened.
Let's set up a government branch to screw it up.
I'm telling you, man, Yeah, I don't know, man. Just

(16:18):
for me personally, I just don't trust our government to
handle something as nuanced and delicate as a part of
the end of life industry. I just think it would
be a typical, inefficient, bureaucratic nightmare, and that's the last
thing people need when they're dealing with like the death
of a family member. That's just me. I think the
organ Procurement system network in place now is a sterling

(16:41):
example of what could be done. It's great. Yeah, I
don't know too much about the financials behind it. Well,
that's the thing, Like I agree with you, it does
cost a certain amount of money to operate, but then
you could have not for profit businesses running these things, right,
So for a not for profit business still creates income,

(17:05):
but that goes into the business that doesn't enrich shareholders
or anything like that. Right, there's so with for profit companies,
and there are I'm not slamming all for profit companies.
There are for profit Uh body donation companies out there
that are great, right, But I'm just saying that the

(17:25):
fact that that is allowed to me allows this free
market in body parts that I don't think should exist. Uh.
There is not one process because there's not one governing body.
So it depends on who you're dealing with. Um, if
it's a medical school, that's a good option, could be
a government agency, could be a private group like you

(17:46):
were talking about. But what you're gonna start out doing
is filling out a lot of paperwork. Uh. You need
to make sure your family knows and is on board
and that step be in your will and uh everyone's
cool with all this. Yeah, because if you go in
the mail clinic website and look how to donate your body,
one of the things they say is if your next
of kin opposes it, we're not going to accept your body. Well,

(18:07):
it's just too much of a headache. Well, plus also
I think they want to like, they don't want this
to be a traumatic experience. They want it. It's supposed
to be a gift. You know. This donation of your
whole body is supposed to be a gift, not supposed
to put your next of kin through hell. And they
don't want a headache. Let's be honest, man. UH, once

(18:30):
you die, you are not guaranteed even if you want
to donate your body, that you can have your body donated.
You need to be in decent shape. There's a lot
of disease and things that they won't accept. HIV one
or two, AIDS related deaths, help B or C symphilist
kidney failure, jaundice, viral infections, bacteria infections, extensive trauma. Yeah,

(18:54):
you can't be severely burned. They want you to be
like basically a typical human being. You can't be too
of weight. No, that's a that's a big one. Um.
Some places, UH will only accept people up to like
a hundred and seventy undred ninety pounds for practical reasons. Yeah,
embalming adds about a hundred pounds to you and they're
gonna have to move you around if you're in an

(19:15):
anatomy lab for a year. Some attendants are going to
have to move you on and off gurneys and out
in and out of the freezer for a whole year.
And they don't want to deal with a four hundred
pound couldaver when they can deal with two hundred fifty
pound cadavers. Yeah, they will also want to be able
to find your organs very easily and not have to
wade through lots of tissue. Yes, you know what I'm saying. Yep.

(19:37):
So if you want to, if you're very serious about
donating your body after death, you want to, that's a
good reason to take care of yourself while you're alive. Also,
and you can help this much less. But if you're emaciated,
grossly emaciated, UM, you probably are not going to have
your body accepted UM. And this brings up a really

(19:59):
important point. If your body is going to be rejected,
which it very easily can be, UM, you need to
have a plan in place for the disposition of your
body should it come back to your family or more likely,
they're not going to ship it into place. Isn't gonna
just send it back, but they're they're going to call

(20:21):
the place in the place, is gonna be like, we
can't use you know, your relative, and now you are
your family stuck with your dead body, which is not
a situation you want to put your family in. Yeah.
I would God, I would hope that most people would
think like, if this doesn't happen, then we can just creamate.
Well the thing. They wouldn't be like, what do we
do now? You know it's not like a sitcom. Yeah,

(20:45):
well you could listen to our podcast Things to Do
with the Dead Body? Right. Oh, I'm glad you bring
that up. Because the Mayo clinic um uses uh alcohol,
what does the alkaline hydrolysis, the one that turns into goo. Nice,
that's how they get rid of bodies. Uh, well, one
positive thing. Actually, they'll stick another break here, okay, and

(21:07):
we'll talk a little bit more about pros and cons
of doing this right for this, so, Chuck, there were

(21:28):
a couple more things like you were you were talking
about the steps to donating your body, right, and they
might not take you. If they do take you, um,
it depends on what organization or company that you go with, right,
that's right. One of the great things about a for
profit company is your family. If you're accepted and you

(21:51):
probably will be accepted. They usually have the UM not
the lowest standards, but the the the most leeway in
accepting bodies. Can with the free market, you can shop around, okay, UM,
see see who you feel most comfortable with. They are
also the ones who are the least likely to UM

(22:12):
put any costs onto your family, right, so they will
pay for things like transportation. They will pay for cremation.
They will probably pay for the costs to return the
cremated remains of you to your family because when they
use your body, there eventually will be UM a cadaver
there that is no use to them, and then will

(22:34):
cremate that and send you the remains right UM. And
they're also usually pretty quick with it because with UM,
with a lot of the for profit companies UM, they
basically cut you into the various parts and then ship
those out and then they have the They do this
fairly quickly UM. And they take that leftover stuff and

(22:55):
then bring your remains back to your family within a
couple of weeks. With If you donate your body to
say like a medical school, the medical school is gonna
be like, thank you, this is very nice. UM, we
need you to pay for some stuff, so transporting the body,
which is why, um, a lot of people will donate
to like their local medical medical school like Emory. Yeah.

(23:17):
So like if you live in Atlanta and you donate
your body to Emory, Emory will probably pay to come
pick it up. But if you died in Alabama and
you had plans to um donate your body to Emory,
your family might want to find a place in Alabama
because Emory is gonna accept your body, but they're not
gonna pay to get it to Atlanta. I don't think

(23:38):
that medical schools in Alabama. Sorry, Alabama so mean and
like we're in Georgia. It's like right, you know, yeah,
we're just so high on the hog I know, but
Georgians are always like, well we're not Mississippi and Alabama
not funny, not fair. It's a little funny like Alabama.
So that is that is definitely a pro of a

(24:00):
for profit companies. Like the costs associated with this donation
are load and nonexistent. That's right. Um. Where so wherever
your body goes, there's going to be some lots of
paperwork to fill out. Your family is going to see
your body off at the funeral home. Maybe the funeral home,
is going to is going to put it, put your

(24:20):
body into a casket, it's going to get on an airplane,
or it's going to go down the road to emery
or whatever. And then, um, you will have no say
whatsoever and what happens to it after that point? Is
that always true? Pretty much? Yes? I figured there were
some companies that allowed you some control. I don't think so.
I think that there are. UM. I have heard that

(24:44):
you can opt to not be used for cosmetic surgery,
but I don't. I didn't see that anywhere in research. Interesting. Um.
One thing that some organizations allowed to do is to
also be an organ donor. But generally they want your
whole body with all its organs intact. But some will

(25:08):
again because it's not you know, one single body, no
pun intended. Uh. Some will allow you to donate your
organs some organs first, and I only saw one that
does that, UM, which I thought was great. I didn't
realize that you could do that. But the reason why
they want all of your organs attact is because you're
serving as a teaching tool for medical students who need

(25:30):
to cut into these things. If you donate it to
a medical school, right. Um. So oh that was another
thing too. If you donated to say like a medical school,
you'll get your cremated remains back usually as well, um,
but it could be it will be well over a
year because they're going to use you for that year
of medical school. Yeah. And y'all, you know you're gonna

(25:52):
want to get right and your family get right with
your ceremonies and how that's handled because either won't have
your cream as or it might take a little while.
So just wrap your head around the fact that you're
just gonna have a memorial service for your loved one
that may not include remains. Um. And you know, some

(26:13):
people still don't like that idea of like like they
want a body there. Some people still need that closure
of seeing the the the dead body sounds awful, but
the problem is is that that is not going to
happen if you donate your body, because you can't be
donated embalmed, so you are shipped fresh, freshly dead. Yeah,

(26:39):
that's happened within a couple of days, Yeah, very quickly.
And in fact, grave robbers when that was at its height. Um,
people at some point in some graveyards used to their
family would guard the body for three or four days
until they figured it was you know, too late. You know, yeah,
I think I remember hearing that. Man crazy huh, it

(26:59):
really is. Um. So the point is the first step
to all this is to tell your family and then
get it down on paper, either in an advanced directive
or will or something like that, and then start looking around.
Yeah and uh, since a lot of these organizations will
pay for the remains and all that, like hopefully financial,

(27:21):
it's not a purely financial consideration. But you can't save
a lot of money by donating your body to science
because funerals and stuff like that is really expensive. That's right, chucking,
Actually that is Um. There's a post on get rich
Slowly dot com about donating your body to science to
save money. Really yeah, and um, I mean it's it's
a totally legitimate thing. The thing is is, um, you

(27:43):
want to have a backup just in case your body
is not accepted. You don't want to bet on the
idea that you don't have to save anything for funeral
costs because you're donating your body to science. Um. But yeah,
I mean, like funerals cost several thousand dollars. Apparently, according
to this article. It was about a little under bucks

(28:04):
in two thou twelve and that's the average UM. And
then cremation is and up to six grand for a
UM a cremation with funeral service and all the bells
and whistles unless you bring your own coffee can and
save money that way Glubowsky reference. So you can save

(28:24):
all this money, especially if you go with a for
private company, UM, and just give it to your errors instead.
You know, uh what else, Well, there are some I
think we talked about the cons right, Yeah, maybe, um,
they have a section to hear about creative ways to
donate your body. Um, there are other things you can do. Yeah,

(28:44):
you can do donate your body to be used as
a crash test dummy. Well here's the thing. I don't
think you really necessarily have say over that. Like I
think when you donate your body you're donating it to
potentially all this stuff in the US. I think you
can donate it. Maybe I'm wrong. I didn't look it up.

(29:05):
I thought you could donate it directly to the n
h T s A. I don't know. Maybe so, or
you could like move to Michigan and make it that
much more likely that it will be used by them.
That's a good point. But they have they do use
bodies of crash tests on me. Yeah, they still do. Um,
there was a great there was a Wired article that
was really good, and then I saw another one called

(29:27):
the Driving Dead. Human cadaver is still used in car
crash testing. There's a place called the Laboratory of Technology
and Systems for Safety and Automobiles. Is that at Wayne State. No,
it's in Spain, uh in northern Spain, and it's one
of six places in the world where they still use
human body crash tests cadavers for crash tests. And it's

(29:49):
been happening for a long time. In the car companies
have distance themselves from it. They don't directly do it.
But what they do is they get the data from
these places that do it right because they don't want
to be directly tied to it. But four very famously
in two thousand and eleven, I guess was testing an
inflatable rear seat belt. So I guess they said, um,

(30:11):
here's our rear seat belt. Why don't you see what happened,
you know with cadavers, And the National Highway UM Safety
Traffic Safety Administration says, oh, we know what you mean.
And so they get their hands on some cadavers and
they wrap them up in body stockings, cover their faces
as you see the pictures of that UM, and they

(30:33):
run them through the rigors and then do autopsies afterwards
to see what happened to the body after it was,
you know, in this crash. Well, and you know, there's
lots of advantages obviously, you can even though biomechanics and
crash thees stummies now are like way better than they
used to be. Um, nothing beats a body. Nothing beats
a body. You know, you can't tell what's really gonna

(30:54):
happen to your internal organs. UM. It's also imperfect because
there are no two cadavers that are the same, so
it's not gonna be consistent. Also, cadavers are usually older
and more fragile. UM. And also young cadavers are hard
to come by because the highest rate of death among

(31:16):
young people are car crashes. Yeah, a strange twist there
stuff to get young cadavers for that research. But there
was a guy in the nineteen thirties named Wawrence Patrick
from Wayne State University. I think you were talking about him,
and he was somewhat of a He was the guy
the crash test pilot. Yeah, Colonel Staff, he was sort

(31:38):
of like him. He was his own test dummy and
would just you know, throw himself downstairs and do all
sorts of stuff. And he even flung a cadaver down
a university elevator chaft to test the strength of a
human skull at one point and found like it can
hold up, yeah, pretty good. So he was I think
led the charge at Wayne State. And they still do

(31:59):
work there with cadavers in highway safety, don't they. It's well, yeah,
and it's so funny to me that this is like scandalous.
Apparently some leak at GM started like talking to the
media about how SAB was running tests using dead bodies.
It's like, that's a great use of a dead body
to like save other people's lives. There's this article from

(32:21):
a guy at Wayne State who wrote that could ever
save abouts annually thanks to serving as crash test dummies.
Um NASA actually used some as well, um to test
the O Ryan capsule because it just isn't the same
thing as using a robot or something like that, and

(32:42):
they certainly don't want to put humans in their first
live humans at least I don't understand why this is
at all scandalous. Again, I think donating your body is
a fantastic thing to do. I think it could get
scandalous and that, uh, which was what we're about to
talk about here with the body's exhibits, is how these

(33:02):
cadavers are sourced. Oh, that's where it gets scandalous. Uh. Well,
that was one of the other creative things you can
do if you want to donate your body to be
in one of those body exhibits. There are two main
ones that I saw, um, Body Worlds and Bodies the

(33:23):
exhibit the exhibit I can't remember which one the exhibition, sorry,
thank you me? And I saw that one. Have you
seen it? The one that's the one in Atlanta. It's
based out of Atlanta. Actually it's astounding, It is astounding.
But they have been dogged by criticism because one group
says that straight up, I think bodies the exhibition straight
up says these are probably criminals from China, and we're

(33:47):
gonna be straight up and say they're unclaimed bodies. The
other one is Body Worlds UM and that's been in
the US since two thousand four, and apparently they have
death certificates. But the paper trail cuts off at a
certain point, and they say it's with respect to anonymity.

(34:07):
But certain people have called them out and said, you
know what, you should have a paper trail like you
can't and equivocally say that these cadavers are all on
the up and up? Can they? And um, they say
they can. But they've come under a lot of fire,
and those exhibits have in general because of where they
get these bodies from. Well, now I feel dirty for

(34:28):
having seen that. Yeah, yeah, I mean like it's disrespectful
to the dead. Well. In two thousand eight, uh, in
New York, the Attorney General force Premier, which was the
company behind I think Body Worlds, to put a disclaimer
that said, this exhibit displays human remains of Chinese citizens
or residents which are originally received by the Chinese Bureau Police.

(34:49):
The Chinese Bureau of Police may receive bodies from Chinese prisons.
Premier cannot independently verify that the human remains you're viewing
are not those persons who are incarcerated in Chinese prisons. Uh. Yeah,
So they forced them to put that up pretty pretty
out there. They're putting it out there. They probably had
that sign after you pay your money to go in.

(35:11):
I doubt if it's by right beside the ticket booth.
But apparently you can donate your body, although I don't
know that you can because it sounds like they're not
sourcing from you know, donating from the United States. Yeah.
I saw somewhere that they have a list of like
twelve thousand living donors just waiting to donate their bodies. Yeah.

(35:32):
Who knows what's real or true anymore? Who knows. Uh.
The other thing you can do is what we talked
about in our awesome classic episode on body Farms. Uh,
if you want to help out forensics study, you can
donate your body to the University of Tennessee go Valls,
and you can be thrown out in the woods decomposed.

(35:52):
Right did you just say go Valls? Really? I have
to keep it consistent. That's cool, man. Yeah, the body
Farm episode was great. I think the only thing I
can't say is go get G A G A T
O R S, which is funny because, yeah, I don't
blame me, but my family's from Tennessee, so I can
root for most SEC teams except for the one in Florida.

(36:15):
Does none of it matters anyway? Um, did you hear
about the woman in New York whose body was accidentally
donated for medical science and her family was like, what
did you do with grandma? And the New York Medical
Examiner went, oh, I said, we planted a tree in

(36:36):
her honor, right, which apparently is what some medical schools
will do. They said, here's some money. We're really sorry.
That was apparently very traumatic for the family. I imagine
they said that that. Yeah, yeah, see, I'm not precious
about after I'm dead. I'm not precious about the this
lump of cells and skin that remains that to me,

(36:59):
that nothing to me. I'm totally with you, man, I
totally agree to me. The only thing is somebody profiting
off of a donation by anybody else what, no matter
what it is, whether it's a body part or money, whatever,
it's that's wrong. Yeah, respect my my spirit and who
I was, not this dead carcass on the table. That's

(37:22):
not me anymore, you know, that's right. I'm gone, buddy,
I'm up there with with the highwaymen. Oh yeah, I'm
flying a starship. Man. What else you got, uh? Skeleton?
The University of New Mexico and Albuquerque. I didn't look
up their mascot, but you said none of it matters anyway,
So I think they're the Lobos Lobos, I think so. Uh.

(37:48):
They have a skeleton collection even though they aren't on display. No,
and apparently the body farm in Tennessee, and that's we
should say, not the only body farm. There's several, um,
but the one in Tennessee will put you in their
skeleton collection afterward as well. You can be you can
be very useful there. Maybe I would like to be

(38:09):
We have a skeleton here at the house stuff works offices.
I'd like to be put alongside him. Did you ever
hear about the the skeleton of the Outlaw? I don't
remember his name, but he was like a real live
one of the last wild West outlaws UM in the
early twentieth century, and his body was put on display
by the coroner and the charge people in Nickel to

(38:32):
come look and sounds familiar from that. He uh he
ended up never being buried and he ended up in like, uh,
like one of those house of horrors that like one
of the rides spook ride or whatever they call him,
dark rides heard about that and um, it turned out
that somebody like was cleaning them or something once decades

(38:54):
later and like broke his hand off and realized, like,
that's a bone, and may this isn't a wax dummy.
And they figured out somebody figured out who it was
that it was this old criminal who was never buried
and ended up in a real carnival ride. I remember
hearing about that. That's crazy. Do you anything else? I
got nothing else? You could be turned into collagen to

(39:15):
be used for facelifts. Uh see, I don't want to
chase anybody away from this. I just think like I
want everybody to flood the market with donated bodies so
much so that like the price comes down and anybody
who's in it too, like who's bodied part pirate, gets
out of the business because it's not lucrative anymore. Bam. Uh.

(39:39):
Since check doesn't have anything more, and I don't either.
If you want to learn more about donating your body
to science a very virtuous thing to do, you can
type those words into search bar how stuff works dot com.
Since I said virtuous, it's time for listener mail. I'm
gonna call this underwater towns. Hey, guys, And you mentioned

(40:00):
of an underwater town near you, and you caught my
attention and how droughts work. I'm originally from the cat Skills,
New York, where my family lived for a few generations,
and I still lived there in the summer. The round
out Round Doubt, I'm not sure it's Round Doubt Reservoir. Uh.
It's always fascinating me because when you drive around it
takes a little time and you pass signs that read

(40:20):
former site of Eureka, former site of Montella, former site
of lack A Whack. After World War Two, with the
huge influx of g I s into New York City
and Long Island, more water was needed and the three
towns were condemned and flooded to create the reservoir. A
few years ago, my grandfather passed away and I became
interested in creating a family archive. One of the many
interesting things among my grandparents photos, papers, and other items

(40:43):
is the postcard that I sent to you. Uh picture
that is. It's not signed, but, according to my grandma,
was written by the postal employee of the town in
the last days of Eureka. It mentions on the back
that he's sending it in part because he thinks of
my great grandfather Bruce might want to photo of the
mill that his father built. Uh. The Rondoubt is a
water supply for New York City, so I wouldn't expect
any Gulf globes to start breaking the surface if the

(41:05):
water got low. But who knows. I have no idea
who's down there. Pretty interesting story. Here's the postcard. Uh.
I also think it's interesting. At the time, apparently only
a name in town was required to send a postcard,
and that is from Patrick. Thanks Patrick. And it was
pretty neat and I just think underwater towns or it's
kind of sad and kind of cool all at the
same time and creepy as long as you get people

(41:27):
out of there. We oh yeah, well, desially they warned
the residents first, I know, but you know how people are.
They don't want to leave their homes. Oh well, whatever,
they were warned. There you have it. Uh. If you
want to get in touch with Chuck or me or whoever,

(41:47):
you can tweet to s Y s K podcast. You
can join us on Facebook dot com. You can send
us an email to Stuff podcast, to how Stuff Works
dot com, and as always, joined us start at home
on the web. Stuff You should Know dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how

(42:07):
stuff Works dot com. M