The human body

How do the lungs, liver or kidneys work? What makes the heart beat? Why does the way to a man’s heart go through his stomach? Our new permanent exhibition allows you to view that what is inside you from a totally different perspective!

A circular room at the entrance to the exhibition is dedicated to the human brain and its sensory organs. What makes you see, hear, smell, taste and feel? And where does the brain come in? Giant models of all the sensory organs and interactive displays illustrate the complexity involved in the processing of sensory input.

Heartbeat and blood cells, lungs and breathing

In this part of the exhibition you learn about the functioning of the heart, its enormous pumping performance and the secret inside every drop of blood. Animated microscopic images make the tiny blood cells come to life. And you can find out whether you are a suitable blood donor for those visiting with you…

The exhibition shows all the important organs of our body as giant models. Embedded into the model of the lungs is a screen, which takes you on a flight into this vital organ and allows you to detect the secret behind breathing. Use a stethoscope to listen to the sounds lungs make. What do healthy lungs sound like? And inflamed lungs? An incredible video created by a Swedish filmmaker using endoscopic cameras allows you to watch the voice boxes of singers in action. Weird!

Digestion and body detoxification

If you liked your intestine somehow to become disentangled and placed inside your body in a straight line, you would need to be eight metres tall! You can explore this fact in a fun model and at the same time compare endoscopic images of the different inner surfaces of the various sections of the intestine. A smart game of digestion traces the fate of our food – an interactive animation follows different foodstuffs through “Mister Austin’s” digestive tract on their way to where all food eventually ends up. And a most peculiar sight: an X-ray film showing oesophagus and small intestine peristalsis. It was made during the 1930’s, before the dangers of X-ray radiation had entered common knowledge.

The liver is best visualized as a chemical laboratory. It is the body’s largest gland and requires one quarter of the oxygen available to the body in order to carry out all its tasks. The giant model shows the dense network of blood vessels passing through the liver, carrying one and a half litres of blood per minute! And finally, there is a large model of the kidney, which is supplemented by a fly-in animation giving a clear account of what our kidneys do all day long.

Body-Soul Transport Association

Physical and mental well-being are interdependent and inseparable in every human being. The makeshift bus-stop belonging to the Body-Soul Transport Association invites you to study a wealth of famous quotes emphasizing this connection. Try and identify the graffiti scribbled all over the back wall from “I’m all ears” to “You broke my heart!“ while you sit and wait for your connection.  

No flowers, no bees: sexuality and reproduction without taboos

This part of the “Journey into the Human Body” was opened as a standalone several years ago and has now become an integral part of the new permanent exhibition. It is a very successful, frank dialogue about all aspects of sex and reproduction, leaving the flowers and the bees where they belong…