The Body Snatchers: Corpse and Effect

You probably know about the period of British history when medical students were in need of bodies to dissect which gave rise to the rash of macabre thefts known as body snatching.  Perhaps the most famous pair were the notorious were Burke and Hare who ironically did not raid cemeteries but murdered people to provide a local doctor with corpses to dismember.  Fortunately the Anatomy Act of 1832 stopped the ghastly business of stealing cadavers from their graces and allowed for the bodies of the recently deceased unclaimed poor to go under the knife of curious students of human composition.

Yet have you ever wondered where the bodies went after the dissections were over?  Fortunately we have Dr Piers Mitchell of Cambridge University (in the video above) to answer that for us. No need to watch this if you are squeamish but if you are interested in pursuing this then Dr Mitchell and colleagues have published Anatomical Dissection in Enlightenment England and Beyond: autopsy, pathology and display (2012) which is available on a number of websites including one which we won’t mention until they start paying more than 0.1% tax in the UK.

18 Things You Should Know About Genetics

Back in March we featured a wonderful animation by David Murawsky entitled A Brief Introduction to Genetics – which was awesome. Well, we are very pleased to tell you that he has gone one further and created this gem – 18 Things You Should Know About Genetics.

Helped out by some wonderful animation and a great voice over by Sarah Henriques, this film presents fundamental background information about genetics, as well as offering some quirky but interesting facts about DNA, genes and genetics.

It was created to be an upbeat, fun educational short film to initiate and draw interest to this sometimes daunting and seemingly complex subject matter.  I wish we had had this sort of educational film when I was at school!