Guts

Wow. I have a very strong stomach and a fascination with anatomy and physiology, but I may have met my match this time. Last week I had Timminy record a 45-minute documentary on HBO called The Virtual Corpse. Words rather escape me at this moment after watching it, and I think most of you couldn't stomach the details. But suffice it to say this is one captivatingly real show. It tells the background of the man whose body became the source material for the National Library of Medicine's Visible Human Project. Joseph Paul Jernigan was an executed prisoner in Texas who agreed shortly before death to donate his body to science. In The Virtual Corpse we hear from family, lawyers, and scientists to get a full picture, no pun intended, of one man's life, death, and dismemberment.