TAKE FIVE: Bodies … The Exhibition

Thursday, June 15, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.

TAKE FIVE: "Bodies ... The Exhibition."

Roy Glover stands next to a skinned cadaver and sips a Diet Coke. "Did you know you can tie a bone in a knot?" he says.

Glover must be a riot at cocktail parties. The former University of Michigan anatomy professor is the man behind the controversial traveling display of Chinese cadavers, "Bodies ... The Exhibition," which opens June 23 at the Tropicana.

The show features 21 whole bodies and 260 body parts - all preserved using silicone rubber. Hundreds of thousands of visitors have filed past these unknowns to get a closer look inside the human body. Organizers say the bodies are from a medical school in northern China. Protesters have questioned who they were and whether they knew that they would be seeing the world or that the world would be seeing them.

Ethics aside, the exhibit could provide tourists with a sobering side of their stay in Sin City.

"There are too many people who abuse their bodies," Glover says. "They smoke too much, eat too much ... We have high-cholesterol diets. We drink too much. We exercise too little We don't get enough sleep. We put too many drugs in our bodies."

Glover believes the nine galleries of sliced and diced, posed and exposed cadavers will inspire us to take better care of ourselves.

1. Gray matter

Nothing stimulates the nervous system like bright lights, spinning slots, blaring music, scantily clad dancers and money, money, money. Track the road map of your nervous system from head to toe and see where your behavior resides.

2. Buffets and bingeing

Before you hit every all-you-can-eat buffet on the Strip, you might want to examine the portion of the exhibit that shows the distribution of fat under the skin and discusses the wear and tear on other organs caused by excessive weight. Or not.

3. Poolside

The hard bodies at the clubs and pools have a lot going on under the skin. Really. See how they connect and flex.

4. Lung power

"Bodies" shows ample examples of lungs damaged by cigarettes. Not only that, it has a Plexiglas case for smokers to leave their packs of cigarettes behind, and many people do, says John Zaller, co-curator of exhibit. "So many people who smoke say, 'I'm going to quit,'" he says, "but they don't actually see what happens to them."

5. Aching bones

Tired feet is a common complaint from tourists who have spent the day and night walking the hot pavement and casino floors. Several displays of foot muscles might explain why. "We show why you have arches," Zaller says. "What happens if arches go out?" And the importance of good shoes while trekking the Strip? "We don't actually talk about shoes."