Image: IHSAAN HAFFEJEE
A quarter of a million people flocked to the first show in South Africa in 2013, to view the wonders of the skeleton, muscles and organs of the human body when the skin has been removed.
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Body Worlds Vitals, which opens in Johannesburg this week, is the second show in South Africa and has 13 new full-body figures. Each one takes about a year to dissect and preserve by plastination (replacing the body fluids with plastics).
Dr Angelina Whalley, who designs the exhibitions, said: "These are not corpses. They are lifelike and appealing so people can relate to them. From the beginning we understood that our specimens need to reach out to people's hearts, not only convey the anatomy. People see themselves inside these bodies and have a different understanding of their inner self."
Viewing how lifestyles affect our bodies - such as the contrast between a healthy lung and one diseased by smoking - catapults many people into making healthier choices.
One survey questioned people six months after seeing the show. "Nine percent claimed they had stopped smoking, 25% that they exercised more and 33% that they ate healthier foods," said Whalley.
The posed plastinates include a soccer player kicking a ball, a pair of figure skaters, and a chess player bent over a desk. In March they will be joined by two bodies posed as if having sex (for which the donors gave consent), which have been delayed in transit.
The sexual content, explicit genitals and a series of embryos and foetuses have stirred up controversy among the show's 40 million visitors in about 100 cities worldwide.
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But Whalley said: "Without sex we wouldn't be here. It is the most human act we know of. What we feel uncomfortable with is just in our heads and seeing bodies in a scientific way can be helpful."
Children may not enter this section and must be over eight to enter Body Worlds.
The biggest plastinated exhibit ever made for "Body Worlds" was an elephant from Asia. It took 64000 working hours - about 40 times more than the work required to do a human body.
An animal exhibition with a male giraffe, a gorilla, a cow, a goat and a dog is touring internationally. The first animal specimen was a horse rearing up - with a rider on its back.
The inventor of plastination, Dr Gunther von Hagens, was inspired by anatomical discoveries by ancient Greeks and Egyptians, and Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci.
For some donors - the institute has more than 15000 donors and 1700 dead bodies- plastination is a form of immortality.
It's not too late to sign up.
'Body Worlds Vitals' is at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Johannesburg from Tuesday to June 19. In Cape Town it will be at the V&A Waterfront from August 9 to October 23.