You don’t need to go to medical school to learn life lessons from a cadaver.
Beverly Boyer knows bodies—the registered massage therapist soothes living muscles every day. But when Boyer describes the first time she peered inside a corpse, her voice lowers as if she’s recalling the start of a great romance. “Everything clicked,” she says. “Everything I had learned through my education—the anatomy, the physiology—I could see it right there.” ¶ It’s a Tuesday night in February, and Boyer, standing in the basement of a funeral parlor, is doing her best to share her macabre love interest with others. In 2014, she founded what’s now called the Colorado Learning Center of Human Anatomy, which rents space in a Longmont mortuary, to give other flesh professionals—massage therapists, yoga teachers, acupuncturists, and energy workers, among others—access to deceased and donated bodies. Each week, dozens of Boyer’s students gather here to manipulate the soft tissue of cadavers, hoping to gain anatomical insight to apply to their own day jobs.
Here is one of a handful of cadaver schools for the nonmedical crowd that has risen up in the past several years. They promise unconventional students a sort of anatomical enlightenment, focusing on the body’s fascial layers, muscular origins, insertion points, nervous systems, and biomechanical functions (and dysfunctions).
As a local lover of science, yoga, and all things strange, I’ve long wondered what these idiosyncratic dissection enthusiasts get out of their evenings with the deceased.
This story is from the Summer 2018 edition of Popular Science.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Summer 2018 edition of Popular Science.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
They Might Be Giants
A photographer-and-ecologist team are on a mission to document the forests’ mightiest members.
Droplet Stoppers
Covid-19 made face masks a crucial part of every outfit, and we’re likely to don them in the future when we feel ill. Fortunately, there’s a style for every need.
Landing a Lifeline
For those whose livelihood depends on the ocean, a covid-spurred interruption in the seafood market might speed progress toward a more sustainable future—for them and for fish.
Headtrip – Your brain on video chat
Dating, Catching up with family, and going to happy hour are best in person.
Behind The Cover
Butterflies may seem delicate, but they are surprisingly tough.
Tales From the Field – A cold one on mars
Kellie Gerardi, bioastronautics researcher at the International Institute for Austronautical Science
The Needs Of The Few
Designing with the marginalized in mind can improve all of out lives.
Life On The Line
On the Western edge of Borneo, a novel conservation-minded health-care model could provide the world with a blueprint to stop next pandemic before it starts.
waste watchers
YOU CAN TURN FOOD SCRAPS INTO FERTILIZER IN ALMOST ANY CONTAINER. THESE BINS USE THEIR OWN METHODS TO ENCOURAGE THE PROCESS, BUT BOTH KEEP BUGS AND STINK AT BAY.
why can't i forget how to ride a bike?
LEARNING TO PEDAL IS NO EASY FEAT.