DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Plastination is in the news.

A plastinated 13-week-old fetus was stolen from the California Science Center in Los Angeles on March 26. It appears from a surveillance camera that two women simply opened an unlocked display case and grabbed it. No motive has been determined.

The AP report, Two Women Sought in Theft of Fetus, ends with a quote I found mildly ironic: The director of the Institute for Plastination said, “How can somebody do this … it’s such a disrespect.”

In related news, SF Chronicle columnist Adair Lara interviewed some of the people behind The Universe Within, in a piece called Seeing Dead People (a curious play on a line from The Sixth Sense, in which, as far as I can remember, nobody was plastinated, although Bruce Willis’ emotive skills can occasionally be described as such).

Lara reveals that Gunther von Hagens, the inventor of plastination (which loyal readers of debris.com already know), has taken in a billion dollars through his traveling Body Worlds exhibit. Small wonder he has competition.