Mousetrap

I am an anatomist, I work on human cadavers and we have a few folks bring their young children into the lab. The context and the behavior of the adults as well as the monitored reaction of the kids are what is most important. When adults are tense or seem like something is wrong, kids pick up on it. When the experience is framed as part of learning and understanding the natural world, and the child wants to see the anatomy, you have no problems. No one is dragging their kid into the lab kicking and screaming. Generally, they want to see more than the simple specimens we select for younger people to have contact with. Life and death are natural, I think anatomy is a beautiful investigation of life in a way impossible on a living creature. It is a very western concept that death must feared and treated as some dirty little secret that we must shield a child from at all costs. The red flags come up when a child captures, tortures and kills animals then keeps trophies. There is a massive difference. I know people who have gotten summer jobs in cadaver labs at the age of 14. It is all in the comfort of the parent and the maturity of the child.

Such as?

Hello all, I'm a paramedic turned anatomist. I'm currently trying to get into a biophysical chemistry program. I'm most aquatinted with the topics of: anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology. My dissection specialties are the human brain and heart, but I can and have worked on every part of the body. I love human biology, but I want to know a bit more than biology is interested in at times. Im not satisfied with saying, "This particular hormone reaches this receptor site on the cell and causes changes." I want to know chemically what is going on, hence my interest in biophysical chemistry. My chemistry knowledge is nowhere near my physiology knowledge, but I am currently working very hard to fix that. I'm here to learn, and happy to help if I've got anything useful to add.

I've cleaned quite a few specimens, the boiling method does work, and does smell absolutely awful. Depending on how hands on you want to be, I'd toss your subject in some formalin and go at it with a scalpel first. This will reduce the amount of stuff you'll need to boil off (and reduce the smell when boiling). The formalin will halt any further decomposition and give some time to work on it. There is always the path of least resistance: http://www.boneroom.com/bone/bone.html If you're still wanting to go the DIY route, I'd clean the bones by scraping as much as possible, soak them in H2O2 for about a half hour if using OTC drugstore H2O2, then boil. Scrape any leftover bits off and supervise time with it until your toddler gets a bit older. No touching bones and then the face/mouth without hand washing etc. it will be reasonably clean, but not sterile.

There are a few studies linking meditation and heart rate control. http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html The short answer is, devote yourself to years of meditation and Buddhist philosophy.