Summary: An stroll through the gory depths of a UC Berkeley Museum preparation lab -- the place where animals are skinned and stuffed for posterity -- in this audio report. [Warning: Some graphic content.]
This piece is filled with moments of description that, um, appeal to the senses, and all of them. Dried chipmunk carcasses hanging "like beef jerky." A meal of beaver (cooked with beer and worcester sauce) that tastes like swiss steak, not chicken. The peeling off of a chipmunk's skin "like taking off a sweater." Mix in flesh-eating beatles, "brain juice," and the smells of death so powerful they cling to clothes and skin, and you're likely to find yourself engaged and entertained, as I was, or lunging for the off switch.
I suspect many stations will find the piece too long. But if you've got space for a good, meandering science feature that mentions maggots and bloated bodies and brain juice, this is the piece for you.
Comments for Under the skin at the Museum of Verterbrate Zoology
Produced by Nathanael Johnson
Other pieces by Nathanael Johnson
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John Biewen
Posted on November 05, 2006 at 06:29 PM | Permalink
Review of Under the skin at the Museum of Verterbrate Zoology
This piece is filled with moments of description that, um, appeal to the senses, and all of them. Dried chipmunk carcasses hanging "like beef jerky." A meal of beaver (cooked with beer and worcester sauce) that tastes like swiss steak, not chicken. The peeling off of a chipmunk's skin "like taking off a sweater." Mix in flesh-eating beatles, "brain juice," and the smells of death so powerful they cling to clothes and skin, and you're likely to find yourself engaged and entertained, as I was, or lunging for the off switch.
I suspect many stations will find the piece too long. But if you've got space for a good, meandering science feature that mentions maggots and bloated bodies and brain juice, this is the piece for you.