New Body Worlds Exhibit Opens Friday at Science Museum

You may have seen the Body Worlds exhibit in 2006. It was the most popular exhibit ever at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

On Friday, Body Worlds & the Cycle of Life opens at the museum. It's the newest creation from physician and pioneering anatomist Dr. Gunther von Hagens.

The exhibit offers a chance to see how the human body grows, deteriorates and ages through time.

Von Hagens uses real human specimens for the exhibit, which is why it got a lot of buzz when it first visited the Twin Cities. The bodies are donated, then preserved through a process called plastination. The exhibit allows you to see bodies in common positions, but from the inside.

On display: A hockey player, a ballet dancer and even a gymnast. You can also see layer by layer, which is an intriguing way to see what disease looks like, from lung cancer to heart attack and Alzheimer's.

There are 20 bodies and it's a journey that, some say, may have you looking at your own body and life differently.

The exhibit runs through May 5.

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