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Bodylink Offers Close-Up Looks - at You and Your Health
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By Jan Childress
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Maryland.com
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 | | Visitors check out a DNA exhibit at the Maryland Science Center. |
Think you’re pretty special? Let’s find out. We have just arrived at BodyLink, a new health sciences exhibit and news center that opened at the Maryland Science Center on Nov. 21. Before us is a photo wall with pictures of prominent Marylanders - sports figures, scientists, musicians. Just behind is another photo wall with pictures of not-so-famous people - like you and me.
Take a close look at them: eyes, ears, chins, smiles, outstretched fingers, clasped hands. Now sit down at the computer and answer 12 questions, such as:
Is your ring finger longer than your index finger? Do you have a dimple in your chin? Does your hairline dip to a V (widow's peak)? When you clasp your hands together, is your left thumb comfortable on top, or is your right thumb?
Each answer produces a different set of percentages on the screen, indicating how many other people (out of a field of 100,000) share the same mix of traits with you. After the last question, the computer shoots out a final percentage.
For every 100,000 people, you may share the same physical characteristics with 10, only five, or - hold on - with no one else! Maybe you are special.
And that's the point of BodyLink, which challenges visitors to take themselves seriously and their health personally. It all starts with genes. Did you know that if you took your DNA and stacked it up end to end, it would reach to the sun and back 600 times? Our genetic make-up predisposes us to certain strengths and weaknesses, including diseases. The good news is that
three-quarters of all health problems are related to lifestyle choices.
Which brings us to another BodyLink message: "Take Control of Your Health." Eat well, exercise, don't smoke. Yeah, we've heard it all before, but here the message is actually fun to digest. So let's head over to the tic-tac-toe game and take a nutrition I.Q. test. Ready? True or False:
* A salad bar is always full of healthy food choices.
* Whole wheat bread has the same health value as white bread.
* Ice cream is a healthier snack than peanuts.
* Yogurt contains live bacteria that are good for your digestive system.
Nope, you won't get the answers here. Gotta go to BodyLink.
Behind the game board, the voice of Katie Couric is heard explaining how early screening for colon cancer saves lives. The news clip, acquired from NBC's "Today Show," illustrates an important feature of BodyLink.
Five motion picture screens are part of an elaborate technology base that allows the full-time staff to keep its exhibit materials current at all times.
In addition to producing its own video, which provides an exhibit overview, the staff is partnering with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, NOVA, Discovery Health News and other science film producers to build a video library for future use. Staff members also scan newspapers, science magazines and other sites for breaking news about medicine and health care. From these sources, they create new short stories every week that are posted on the exhibit area screens.
"We look for ways to change our information quickly," says Jennifer Bistrack, director of BodyLink. "Like many science centers, our goal is to present current science. That requires an elaborate and highly adaptive communications technology base."
Gone are the days when visitors walked silently through rooms filled with specimens in glass cases. While some museums still cling to that outmoded form of exhibitry, the Maryland Science Center is part of a new trend that turns a visit into a hands-on, highly interactive adventure. BodyLink's exhibits are linked to the latest science news - stories heard every day on radio and TV and read in newspapers, magazines or online.
Just because we have easy access to news doesn't mean that we always understand it. So the creators of BodyLink worked out an arrangement with grad students from the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and University of Maryland Medical Center, both only a few blocks away in downtown Baltimore.
During the week, a group of Ph.D. candidates and postdocs take turns working in the exhibit area, answering questions from visitors and directing hands-on demonstrations. Their semester-long commitment also includes weekend shifts and an agreement to lead a teacher-training workshop.
Just after BodyLink opened, Devrim Pesen, who gets her Ph.D. in biophysics from Johns Hopkins in a few months, talked to a group of middle-school students about how the respiratory system works. To test lung capacity, the kids took turns blowing into a long plastic bag - think of a Ziploc shaped like a giant snake - that was marked off in metric divisions. The tallest boy puffed out four liters of air, earning praise from Devrim and good-natured shoves from his friends.
Devrim has been working as a volunteer at the Maryland Science Center since
last summer. Her parents are teachers and she, too, enjoy the interaction with students, despite her course load at Johns Hopkins. "When the kids understand a new concept, when they see what it means to them personally, their eyes light up," she explains. "That's my goal - to see that spark."
The students had moved to a nearby table where another volunteer was overseeing a "hidden sugars" activity. Five plastic bottles were filled with different levels of white sugar. The object was to match the sugar bottles with pictures of common beverages. To no one's surprise, a can of soda had the highest numbers: 104 grams of sugar in 32 ounces, exactly twice the amount found in a 32-ounce can of lemonade and three times the amount found in the same-sized glass of orange juice.
Still, the difference between sugar levels was pretty stunning. Sodas have that much more sugar? Way at the end of the tooth-cavity trail was a glass of whole milk: only five grams in a 32-ounce glass.
We can halt the sugar abuse by ourselves but heart disease, AIDS, cancer and some infections are harder to deal with. Four "Technology Spotlights" at BodyLink provide reassuring evidence of science technology at work. Take the Smart Bandage, a tiny wafer of silicon that can detect potentially deadly bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella. In a few decades or less, we may all wear Smart Bandages.
Researchers also hope to prevent Alzheimer's, some forms of cancer and even allergies through vaccines. Right now, they are working to develop genetically engineered bananas to serve as vaccines of the future.
Hard to imagine. Meanwhile, news briefs continued to flash across the BodyLink big screens: "Based on evidence that alcohol-based gels kill more microbes than soap and water, the federal government has issued new guidelines encouraging doctors and nurses working in hospital settings to wash their hands with these gels....The Environmental Protection Agency is targeting environmental pollutants that contribute to asthma in a new research plan."
These stories will be replaced by new ones next week and the week after next and every week. That's the point of BodyLink. Science changes constantly and the latest news blip may personally affect your future. Personally, I'm waiting to eat my flu shot in a banana.
Jan Childress is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
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