OXFORD, Ohio — You’ve seen the ads, you’ve seen the press and you know controversy is brewing. Real cadavers. Dissected bodies. Organs framed perfectly in the human skeletal system. All on display in eerie and lifelike positions.

It goes by one word — “Bodies.” The exhibition opened Feb. 1 at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal amid excitement, controversy and a whole lot of skin.

The exhibit is operated by the Atlanta-based company Premier Exhibitions, made famous in 2003 for its recovery of Titanic artifacts. Since then, the publicly traded company’s exhibits have taken the nation by storm. Bodies has been a huge success for Premier Exhibitions and has opened in museums from Atlanta to Manhattan, N.Y. with portions of the exhibit also shown overseas in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Barcelona, Spain.

According to Morris Tsai, a popular Cincinnati blogger, the $23 admission charge has helped the exhibit earn its position as one of the most profitable exhibits in the country.

Miami University zoology adjunct assistant professor Jill Russell said the emergence of “Bodies” and other similar exhibits showcasing plasticized bodies represent a new trend in museums across the country.

According to Russell, the popularity of such exhibits has erupted in the past five years.

“Until recently, I had never seen this way of preserving bodies although ‘Bodies’ is not the only exhibit of this type,” Russell said. “This kind of exhibit has really just popped up in the last five years.”