The exhibit is completely self-paced - wander at will as long as you want to. They do have an audio guide, but it's not very informative - doesn't provide any more infomation than the exhibit placards.

Fortunately people are respectful of the exhibits, but most are completely out in the open - there's no physical barrier between you and the whole body specimens - you could put your hand on any portion of most of them (except that it's prohibited by policy, although they're made to be handled in a med school environment).

For anyone who is interested in human anatomy this is the ultimate experience. Nothing, including corpse dissection, can come close because the spatial relationships are fully preserved.

How they can "extract" the complete circulatory system of a child or an adult head and display it in its original spatial context is beyond my imagination, but they can, right down to the capillaries in the fingertips and ear lobes.

Thanks for reminding. The Museum of Science and Industry was one of my favorite day-trips when I was growing up in Gary, Indiana. Take the kids. Be sure to take two days and go to the Adler Planetarium, the Museum of Natural History, and the Aquarium, which are clustered not too far from the science museum.

• http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050813/ap_on_sc/corpse_show