If you want to learn about life, spend some time with a corpse.

There are about 25 bodies on display at the Body Worlds 2 exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. The wildly popular exhibition also features more than 200 examples of preserved organs, bones, nerves, blood vessels and cadavers that are sliced like bread.

Thanks to a preservation process called plastination, the corpses are positioned in dynamic poses without the use of formaldehyde or glass barriers.

The bodies (or plastinates, as they are officially called) fly off a ski jump, do an upside-down skateboard maneuver, throw a javelin and play soccer. They show us how our nerves work, how our ligaments hold us together and how things go terribly wrong if we don't take care of our bodies.

"Plastinated anatomy is beauty beneath the skin, frozen in time between death and decay," said plastination pioneer Gunther von Hagens, a German physician who always wears a black fedora, even during autopsies.

"It opens our heart to our inner self and makes us fall in love with our own body."

The Body Worlds exhibitions, three in all, have drawn 18 million viewers worldwide. They have also encountered a fair amount of criticism.

Some say the exhibits are disrespectful and undignified. Others object to a section that features fetuses at various stages of growth and a pregnant woman with a child in her womb. A California panel of religious and ethics leaders concluded that the Body Worlds exhibit had proper consent for each body on display.

The crowd who flocked to the Denver museum on a recent sold-out Sunday didn't seem to have any concerns. Most visitors - ranging from the very young to the very old - were plainly fascinated.

Vilma Arias de Morales, 50, was animated as she showed her family the nerves and ligaments running down the legs of one figure.

"The pain is right there," said the Colorado Springs woman, reliving the sciatic agony she suffered for three years. "You keep going on the Internet to learn about it, and nothing shows it like this. This is amazing."

All around the semi-darkened rooms of the exhibit, visitors were reading signs and pointing to their bodies, trying to work out where everything fits beneath their skin.

A wife stared at a charred set of smoker's lungs and told her husband, yet again, to give up the cigarettes.

A group hovered over a thick slab sliced vertically from an obese man, with layers of fat pressed against his organs. "Eeew," they muttered.

Another display on the reproductive system prompted one youth to marvel, "[A] baby can fit through there?"

"Yeah," said Janice Whatcott of Layton. "I've had four of them and I still don't believe it."

Lily Poon looked at a tangle of fiery red fibers knitted together in the shape of an arm. The maze of arteries and blood vessels looked like "fat choi," a kind of hairlike Chinese seaweed, she said. "Does it make you hungry?" she teased her two young cousins, Ning and Shuk-Yee.

The youths were grossed out by the suggestion, but not the display. "It's really cool," said 14-year-old Shuk-Yee.

Nearby, 5-year-old Pete Papadopoulos counted slowly while looking at a foot. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six! He has six toes!"

Pete and his brother, 3-year-old Niko, were among many small children at Body Worlds 2 on this day.

"I like it because you can see what's inside of them," said Pete.

Do you have all that stuff inside you? someone asked Niko.

"I don't have that," he said with wide eyes, pointing apparently to a man's genitals.

The museum said the exhibit is appropriate for children in fifth grade and above, but plenty of younger kids have visited.

A museum volunteer said she's only seen one child become distressed at the exhibit.

Jim and Karen Wilk had no qualms about bringing their 10-year-old son, Justin, to Body Worlds 2. "We're pretty open with stuff like this," said Karen, a nurse.

"When I was a kid, I would have loved it," said Jim, a doctor who practices in Denver. It was obvious he was loving it now. "I hope it gets people to realize that under the skin, all of us are alike," he said. "There's no reason for prejudice or anything."

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Contact Jennifer Barrett at jbarrett@sltrib.com or at 801-257-8611. Send comments to livingeditor@sltrib.com.

How did they do that?

The bodies are preserved through a process called plastination. The technique, pioneered in 1977 by German physician Gunther von Hagens, works by removing bodily fluids and fat and replacing them through vacuum-forced impregnation with special fluid plastics.

The bodies are then posed and cured with light, heat or gases.

They are dry and odorless, even in the Denver museum, which was hot and stuffy on a recent visit. The bodies are "identical with their state prior to preservation down to the microscopic level," according to an exhibit fact sheet.

Approximately 6,000 people who are alive today have donated their bodies to be plastinated by von Hagens' Institute for Plastination.

Body Worlds 2, at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science

WHY GO? Unless you're a physician, mortician or amateur anatomist, this is likely to be the best glimpse you'll get at what's happening beneath your skin. The exhibit offers not only insight into the human form, but also dramatic lessons on why you need to take care of yourself.

HOW TO GET THERE: The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is at 2001 Colorado Blvd., Denver. Driving from Salt Lake City (via Interstate 15 and then I-70) will take about 7.5 hours. Flights take about 90 minutes. Least expensive round-trip fares from Salt Lake City International are running about $150-$200, although a Frontier Airlines flight could be as cheap as $105.

WHAT IT WILL COST: Admission to the museum and Body Worlds 2 exhibit is $20, $14 for children and students, $16.50 for seniors. If you visit after 5 p.m., tickets are $15, $11 and $13.50, respectively. Helpful audio guides are an extra $4. Tickets are issued for specific time slots, and many times sell out early. Buy ahead to ensure you'll get in and won't stand in long lines.

WHEN TO VISIT: The exhibit is open every day at 9 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m. Monday-Wednesday; 9 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; and 6 p.m. on Sunday. The show closes July 23. If you want to peruse the museum's other collections, be warned that the rest of the museum closes at 5 p.m. daily. Weekends can be crowded.

NOT TO MISS: The gift shop, which offers great resources for viewers still curious about bodies. Highly recommended: Mary Roach's book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. There are lots of items for children here, too, including body puzzles and lift-the-flap books.

WHERE TO EAT: The T-Rex Café and Snack Bar are easy options inside the museum. A more pleasant choice might be to pack a picnic and eat it in City Park, which surrounds the museum.

WHAT'S NEARBY: The museum is situated in City Park, the largest in Denver with a beautiful view of the downtown. Before or after visiting Body Worlds 2, you can take a stroll, visit the two lakes, play a round of golf, see the Denver Zoo, hit the playground or kick a ball around the football and soccer fields.

FOR INFO: Log on to http://www.dmns.org, http://www.bodyworlds.com or call 303-322-7009.