Thursday, December 23, 2010

Lookout Google Maps – Here comes Google Body!

Is there anything Google can’t do? That’s the question I asked myself yesterday after my first experience with Google Body. What Google has done for street maps, it is now beginning to do for the human body. Google Body is a virtual system that involves an anatomical human model where you can peel back the layers of the body to visualize everything from muscles, to organs, to nerves to bones (all labelled and all searchable!) – and the entire thing is web-based! Granted you have to install the most up to date version of Firefox or Chrome which supports the WebGL standard but that’s a very small price to pay to get a glimpse of this FREE tool. I learned about it from my friend Katia Hamati. She’s an Instructional Designer with Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean. In fact, she has gone on to create a short video that demonstrates some of the features of Google Body – so you can view this video before you dive into Google Body yourself.



For a first release, they have done a very respectable job. Some detail is missing and I really hope that Google continues to develop this tool to add more detail to it. I would love to see it slowly morph into a very robust and complete depiction of the physical structures in the human body. The fact that it is FREE for everyone to use is just fantastic. Do you teach Biology, Anatomy, Physiology, etc? If so, please leave a comment below about how you feel about this resource.

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