I think I've alluded to my fur collection previously, but I didn't elaborate much. I mostly don't mention it because people still find it a bit taboo to own fur, but the large majority of my collection is vintage. For this reason, I have a growing interest in taxidermy. I have two taxidermied deer heads from the 1920's, and I wondered how they have lasted this long and still look lifelike. In fact, the oldest taxidermied animal is a 17th century rhinocerous at the museum of Florence. I have not seen it, but, I would really really like to. Anyway... naturally I thought, "why don't people get taxidermied?" Wouldn't it last longer than embalming, and be less of a maintenance problem?


Well, I'm a fan of VSauce, and came across this video which answered my questions.



I know we were talking about it a couple of weeks ago, but I also think that plastination is really interesting. It's curious that donated bodies, once modified, actually become own-able property. What if the owners of the exhibit wanted or needed to sell the exhibit for financial reasons? Are they then allowed to sell individual bodies for profit? Is there a potential loophole, as Michael suggests, to donating your body for plastination, and in turn buying the plastinated corpse legally?


One of the things that I worry about plastination is the processes that it undergoes. If we're talking making a minimal impact on the environment, well, making plastic pollutes the environment. These bodies would not be able to be interred because they will not decay, and who knows about the toxicity levels in the preservation method. I guess that long-term preservation is probably not the most important thing for the environmentally-conscious individual.