Don’t open that package

A Michigan couple got a macabre surprise recently when they received two packages that they thought contained the table they’d just bought on eBay. Instead, inside the bubble wrap, they found a human liver and ear that had been culled from corpses in China and plasticized. As the New York Times reported last August, Chinese companies are churning out body parts, mostly for museums:

Inside a series of unmarked buildings, hundreds of Chinese workers, some seated in assembly line formations, are cleaning, cutting, dissecting, preserving and re-engineering human corpses, preparing them for the international museum exhibition market.

Thankfully, it sounds as if the delivery service DHL is to blame for the mistake and that eBay is still refusing to allow the sale of body parts. The liver and ear were bound for a medical research lab nearby. Police think another two dozen plasticized body parts from China are on their way to wrong addresses across Michigan. So, if you’re expecting a parcel, you may want to double check the return address before opening.