This week’s Specimen of the Week is a guest edition by Front of House Volunteer and a UCL Masters student of Human Evolution and Behaviour, Adam Cogan.

A sheep’s brain disected to reveal a large tapeworm cyst. LDUCZ-D60

If by now 2018 is giving you a bit of a headache, then this week’s Specimen of the Week may make you feel a bit better! Today our guest (and host, I suppose) is… (more…)

Last week we added a human specimen to our display of animal brains. Why wouldn’t we?

The real question is why hadn’t we. And the answer is that we weren’t allowed to. The Human Tissues Act (2004) controls how human bodies, organs and tissues are used. Different licenses are required to store, teach with or display human specimens. Until recently, we didn’t have any of these licences for the Grant Museum, which affected what we could include to represent Homo sapiens in our displays.

A human specimen (centre) has been added to the Grant Museum’s brain comparative anatomy display

How museums display humans

There are many ways in which a human might find themself in a museum after they died. (more…)