Shiny Plastic People

We here at LAist don't consider ourselves squeamish. On the contrary, we like to think of ourselves as a hard-bitten news organization, full of cynical chain-smokers who fire questions at homicide dicks as they work a bloody crime scene (what other people think of us is their own business).

But then came plastination, the process in which a human body is, in effect, transformed into a skinless action figure. This fascinating, though creepy, process is currently on display at the California Science Center, in an exhibition called, appropriately enough, Body Worlds.

Whether the exhibit is a macabre freak-out which shocks sensitive viewers into a existential crisis, or a remarkable glimpse at all the gross stuff we hide under our skin is in the eye of the beholder. Apparently though, the sight of all those cavorting plastic cadavers has moved at least 30 of our fellow Angelenos to donate their bodies to the Institute of Plastination, where, after they lay down their earthly burdens, their bodies will be infused with reactive polymers and placed on display.

LAist hasn't decided whether we want to donate ourselves (we're really thinking we prefer cremation), but if being eternally plastic is something you dig (and hey, this is LA) click here to donate yourself.