Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, welcome to the Best of Science. I'm Hannah Fry. And I'm Michael Stevens. We're starting today. Michael, have you held on to any body parts?
Chapter 2: What happens to body parts after they are removed?
You know, children's teeth, for example, would be the normal one.
My daughter hasn't lost teeth yet, but my mother still has all of my baby teeth.
Right.
In a little container in her cabinet, in her kitchen.
That's, I'm somewhere between adorable and creepy. I know, right? But it's not creepy. I have kept all of my daughter's teeth, actually. Yeah. And I'm not sure which one's which. Oh, because you've got multiple. Multiple daughters. But don't you have separate containers for them? I probably should have done that.
Because my mom has kept mine and my sister's teeth like labeled. Now, I only have one child. So when I look and I find an old dried up piece of umbilical cord, I know that it's hers. But I've kept that. I've kept cuttings from my daughter's first haircut. Oh, you know what?
This isn't a body part, but I kept a bandage from my cat because when I took the bandage off, the bloodstain on it was a perfect heart shape. Oh. I mean, perfect, like uncanny. I'll have to show you a photo later. If I can find one, we'll put it in the episode. I was just using some industry terms. But that's it. Oh, and of course, my bag of beard hair.
Wait, tell me that you did not bring your bag of beard hair with you. I didn't bring my bag of beard hair. But I once shaved my beard off for charity and there was way more beard hair than like we could in good conscience give a person. So – but I kept the rest of it because I'm like my beard won't be this color forever. It's turning gray.
So I should keep some samples from before it turned gray and I've just got a little Ziploc bag of it pinned onto my pegboard as like a memory.
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Chapter 3: Can you keep an amputated limb or organ?
Like I would be totally happy to give my wife or my daughter my skeleton after my death and they can do whatever they want with it. They can make me pick my butt. They can make me do whatever because that's my sense of humor. Right. In fact, Here's another declaration. My wife refuses to do this. But instead of like a gravestone, I want a toilet that is like a bench.
But it's a toilet that has like in memory of Michael Stevens and people can sit on it and look at the view. But she doesn't want a toilet to be my tombstone.
Wait, sorry, I misunderstood. Why do you want a toilet to be your tombstone?
Because it's just funny. It's just a bit.
Yeah.
It's just like, hey, why is there a toilet in the cemetery? Now, maybe that's disrespectful to the other people buried there.
Because suddenly you turn the cemetery into a bathroom.
I turn it into a bathroom. So maybe it's more like a public park puts up a memorial toilet for me.
I do like the idea of having a bit for after you die. You know, Spike Milligan, this very amazing British comedy writer, on his tombstone, he insisted that it had inscribed, I told you I was ill. Oh. Don't really lie.
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Chapter 4: What are the regulations surrounding body ownership in the UK?
And I just, I like... Yeah. And being as he's a clown and it all felt like it actually kind of all fit. But yet it feels a bit disrespectful to be dancing on a grave. Now, he isn't actually buried underneath them. But I liked a silly oddball memorial.
There is somebody who has donated their skeleton to be displayed forever, though.
Who?
Jeremy Bentham.
Oh, of course. Yeah. I've never seen it, but you've seen it.
I've seen it. Oh, I've seen it.
Is it a skeleton or is there still like dried flesh on it?
Oh, there's dried. Well, OK, so there's a couple of different parts. So we should just say Jeremy Bentham, he's the father of utilitarianism, this philosopher, but he also was one of the founders of capitalism. The university which I did my PhD in was a professor for a number of years. This is like 1830s was when he died and he wanted to donate his body to science.
He was like, I think that actually a great act would be to have a public dissection of my body, you know, let people see, you know, and I want it to be on display. I want my body to be on display.
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