RTW--Sweet Cadaver Lips

Monday was a blogging holiday, wasn't it? Yeah, I didn't post because we were out of town and didn't have time to set up an automatic post before we left. But today is Road Trip Wednesday!

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors and followers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: What is the strangest/weirdest thing you've ever researched?

So this is where the title of my post comes into play. And, no,it's not a zombie reference! I once saw an item in the newspaper on organ and tissue donors,and it listed all the ways that your body and parts are used when you donate it.

In addition to the well-known organ donations and medical school donations, they mentioned that lip augmentation can use tissue from cadavers. They don't actually transplant the lips; they instead insert or inject skin cells harvested from cadavers to give lips that puffy look.

I found this to be just horrifying enough to be fascinating, and knew it required further research. Thank goodness for the relative anonymity of the internet, where I could search for "cadaver lips" and "cadaver cosmetic surgery" and "corpsey lips" (okay, that last one was a search for the lyrics of "Lady Margaret") without getting strange looks. Though I'm not altogether sure that I'm not on some sort of watch list.

Today, while typing this post, I tried to find the links I'd seen before, but instead came across this:



Sigh. Another book for my reading list.

What about you? What's the weirdest thing you've researched in the name of writing? Don't forget to go to YA Highway and check out everyone's answers (you'll find them in the comments).

8 comments:

Kate Hart said...

A friend's eyes were donated, and I've always found that fascinating and somewhat horrifying, but lips... wow.

Angelica R. Jackson said...

My WIP, Crow's Rest, includes a brain dead character whose family is planning to donate his organs. His girlfriend has some trouble with the idea of parts of him walking around in other people, but him being gone. I've always wondered how much "muscle memory" is retained.

Angie said...

Haha, that's too funny, and yes, it would make an interesting addition to a book.

Alison Miller said...

Interesting and weirdly fascinating. Note to self - be satisfied with own lips.

I've researched some strange things too. And can spend hours doing it.

Brianne Carter said...

Whoa, that is really interesting. Also would really like to read about someone who has issues with her boyfriend's organs being donated, sorry to be redundant, but it sounds so interesting,=.

Elizabeth Varadan, Author said...

Lips! Ick!

Angelica R. Jackson said...

Thanks for the validation that I've got an interesting story twist, everyone!

Christina Mercer said...

Mmmm...for me: Bog butter, grease heal, and mispickel to name a few ;-)

I also like the story twist in Crow's Rest!

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