I Never Metatarsal I Didn't Like @humananatomyfacts - Tumblr Blog

Humans are the only mammal that cannot swallow and breathe at the same time

The reason for this is that humans' voice boxes are unusually low in their throats compared to other animals. In turn, this allows our voices to resonate much more, which allows for us to produce such a wide variety of sounds!

The picture of the world we "see" is artificial.

Our brains don't produce an image the way a video camera works. Instead, the brain constructs a model of the world from the information provided by modules that measure light and shade, edges, curvature and so on. This makes it simple for the brain to paint out the blind spot, the area of your retina where the optic nerve joins, which has no sensors. It also compensates for the rapid jerky movements of our eyes called saccades, giving a false picture of steady vision.

But the downside of this process is that it makes our eyes easy to fool. TV, films and optical illusions work by misleading the brain about what the eye is seeing. This is also why the moon appears much larger than it is and seems to vary in size: the true optical size of the moon is similar to a hole created by a hole punch held at arm's length.

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Your eyes are very sensitive, able to detect just a few photons of light.

If you take a look on a very clear night at the constellation of Andromeda, a little fuzzy patch of light is just visible with the naked eye. If you can make out that tiny blob, you are seeing as far as is humanly possible without technology. Andromeda is the nearest large galaxy to our own Milky Way. But "near" is a relative term in intergalactic space – the Andromeda galaxy is 2.5m light years away. When the photons of light that hit your eye began their journey, there were no human beings. We were yet to evolve. You are seeing an almost inconceivable distance and looking back in time through 2.5m years.

Not all the useful DNA in your chromosomes comes from your evolutionary ancestors – some of it was borrowed from elsewhere.

Your DNA includes the genes from at least eight retroviruses. These are a kind of virus that makes use of the cell's mechanisms for coding DNA to take over a cell. At some point in human history, these genes became incorporated into human DNA. These viral genes in DNA now perform important functions in human reproduction, yet they are entirely alien to our genetic ancestry.

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The human feet have 52 bones.

This accounts for one quarter of all the human body’s bones.

#human anatomy facts #biology #human anatomy #science

lesleighlefou

kn27art

muscular system and a purposely drawn long neck for shits and giggles

staceythinx

A knitted anatomy lesson by Shanell Papp

Papp on the project:

To make the work, I borrowed a human skeleton from the university and collected anatomical textbooks. I also managed to track down a mortuary gurney for displaying the work–a mortuary gave me a gurney after a renovation…they were looking to get rid of it since “people are were getting too fat for the gurney.” I also worked in an old hospital turned history museum. I also went to open house day at a local funeral…they gave me a decorative pen. During my graduate studies, I was granted open access to the gross anatomy lab, though I was long finished making LAB/skeleton at this point. I was given access to draw, look around…. It is always funny how specimens are collected and cared for.

geneticist

laboratoryequipment-blog

Water-Wrinkled Fingers Hold Evolutionary Purpose Wrinkly fingers caused by soaking them in water for a long time, such as in the bath or doing the dishes, have been shown to improve our grip on wet objects or objects under water. Scientists at Newcastle Univ. studied people taking objects out of water with wrinkled fingers and again without wrinkled fingers to explain why the effect occurs. Author Tom Smulders, publishing the paper in Biology Letters says, “We have shown that wrinkled fingers give a better grip in wet conditions – it could be working like treads on your car tires which allow more of the tire to be in contact with the road and gives you a better grip. Going back in time this wrinkling of our fingers in wet conditions could have helped with gathering food from wet vegetation or streams. And as we see the effect in our toes too, this may have been an advantage as it may have meant our ancestors were able to get a better footing in the rain.” Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/water-wrinkled-fingers-hold-evolutionary-purpose

Wow!

WAAAH?!

Emily Whitehead the girl whose cancer was ‘cured’ by HIV virus.

seven-year-old girl has become the first child leukaemia patient to be successfully treated by doctors using a disabled form of the virus that causes Aids to reprogramme the immune system.

When chemotherapy failed to work for Emily Whitehead, diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, she underwent a new experimental treatment at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

It involved tricking her immune system into fighting the cancer cells.

Dr Stephan Grupp, Director of the Centre for Childhood Cancer Research at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told CBS: “We’ve treated the first couple of patients and we’ve been blown away by the results”.

They’ve been very exciting.

“We collect cells of the immune system from a patient, so we use the patient’s own cells. We put in a new gene in those cells that makes the cells go after cancer cells and then we put those cells back in the patient.”

phantom-quantum

CREYS BECAUSE SCIENCE IS WINNING

artandsciencejournal

Michele Parliament

In the about section of her website, Michele Parliament defines herself as an art school dropout. Despite this she’s had 25 shows so far and has an impressive body of work. In this series of digital collages on giclee prints, Parliament combines nature with images of the body. A healthcare professional by day, and an artist by night, Parliament makes work that show an anxiety about our state, and a hope to connect more with nature. Aside from the themes these works are stunning to look at. To see more of her works, click here.

- Lee Jones

#art #anatomy #michele parliament #science #illustration

fuckyeahneuroscience

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, in collaboration with colleagues in Germany and the Netherlands, have identified a previously unknown group of nerve cells in the brain. The nerve cells regulate cardiovascular functions such as heart rhythm and blood pressure. It is hoped that the discovery, which is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, will be significant in the long term in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases in humans.

The scientists have managed to identify in mice a previously totally unknown group of nerve cells in the brain. These nerve cells, also known as ‘neurons’, develop in the brain with the aid of thyroid hormone, which is produced in the thyroid gland. Patients in whom the function of the thyroid gland is disturbed and who therefore produce too much or too little thyroid hormone, thus risk developing problems with these nerve cells. This in turn has an effect on the function of the heart, leading to cardiovascular disease.

It is well-known that patients with untreated hyperthyroidism (too high a production of thyroid hormone) or hypothyroidism (too low a production of thyroid hormone) often develop heart problems. It has previously been believed that this was solely a result of the hormone affecting the heart directly. The new study, however, shows that thyroid hormone also affects the heart indirectly, through the newly discovered neurons.

“This discovery opens the possibility of a completely new way of combating cardiovascular disease”, says Jens Mittag, group leader at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Karolinska Institutet. “If we learn how to control these neurons, we will be able to treat certain cardiovascular problems like hypertension through the brain. This is, however, still far in the future. A more immediate conclusion is that it is of utmost importance to identify and treat pregnant women with hypothyroidism, since their low level of thyroid hormone may harm the production of these neurons in the foetus, and this may in the long run cause cardiovascular disorders in the offspring.”

Original paper here:

Thyroid hormone is well known for its profound direct effects on cardiovascular function and metabolism. Recent evidence, however, suggests that the hormone also regulates these systems indirectly through the central nervous system. While some of the molecular mechanisms underlying the hormone’s central control of metabolism have been identified, its actions in the central cardiovascular control have remained enigmatic. Here, we describe a previously unknown population of parvalbuminergic neurons in the anterior hypothalamus that requires thyroid hormone receptor signaling for proper development. Specific stereotaxic ablation of these cells in the mouse resulted in hypertension and temperature-dependent tachycardia, indicating a role in the central autonomic control of blood pressure and heart rate. Moreover, the neurons exhibited intrinsic temperature sensitivity in patch-clamping experiments, providing a new connection between cardiovascular function and core temperature. Thus, the data identify what we believe to be a novel hypothalamic cell population potentially important for understanding hypertension and indicate developmental hypothyroidism as an epigenetic risk factor for cardiovascular disorders. Furthermore, the findings may be beneficial for treatment of the recently identified patients that have a mutation in thyroid hormone receptor α1.

#science #neuroscience #neuron #thyroid #hormones #hormone regulation #cardiology #brain

them-days-was-olden-as-fuck

The spread of the black death.

kaneohtakarada-deactivated20160

Poland

sarahvonkrolock

Poland, tell us your secret.

nautilidi-deactivated20130605

Poland is the old new Madagascar.

lazuli43

If I remember correctly, Poland’s secret is that the jews where being blamed all over europe (as usual) as scapegoats for the black plague. Poland was the only place that accepted Jewish refugees, so pretty much all of them moved there.

Now, one of the major causes of getting the plague was poor hygiene. This proved very effective for the plague because everyone threw their poop into the streets because there were no sewers, and literally no one bathed because it was against their religion. Unless they were jewish, who actually bathed relatively often. When all the jews moved to Poland, they brought bathing with them, and so the plague had little effect there.

Milan survived by quarantining its city and burning down the house of anyone showing early symptoms, with the entire family inside it.

kiwimane

I reblogged this tons of times, but the Milan info is new.

Damn Italy, you scary.

thesonicscrew

Poland: “Hey, feeling a bit down? Have a quick wash! There, you see? All better”

Milan: “Aw, feeling a bit sick are we? BURN MOTHERFUCKER, BURN!!!!!”

theeyesinthenight

Also, this might have something to do with it: from what I understand, O blood type is uncommonly… common in Poland. Something to do with large families in small villages and a LOT of intermarriage. The black plague was caused by a bacterium that produced, in its waste in the human body, wastes that very closely mimic the “B” marker sugars on red blood cells that keep the body from attacking its own immune system. Anyone who has a B blood type had an immune system that was naturally desensitized to the presence of the bacterium, and therefore was more prone to developing the disease. Anyone who had an O type was doubly lucky because the O blood type means the total absence of ANY markers, A or B, meaning that their bodys’ immune system would react quickly and violently against the invaders, while someone with an A may show symptoms and recover more slowly, while someone with B would have just died. Because O is a recessive blood type, it shows in higher numbers when more people who carry the recessive genes marry other people who also carry the recessive gene. Poland, which has a nearly 700 year history of being conquered by or partnering with every other nation in the surrounding area, was primarily an agricultural country, focused around smaller, farming communities where people were legally tied to, and required to work, “their” land, and so historically never “spread” their genes across a large area. The economy was, and had been, unstable for a very long period of time leading up to the plague, the government had been ineffective and had very little reach in comparison to the armies of the other countries around for a very very long time, and so its people largely remained in small communities where multiple generations of cross-familial inbreeding could have allowed for this more recessive gene to show up more frequently. Thus, there could be a higher percentage of O blood types in any region of the country, guaranteeing less spread of the illness and moving slower when it did manage to travel. Combine this with the fact that there were very few large, urban centers where the disease would thrive, and with the above facts, and you’ve got a lovely recipe for avoiding the plague.

Interestingly enough, as a result from the plague, the entirety of Europe now has a higher percentage of people with O blood type than any other region of the world.

simoorgh

WHY IS THIS ALL SO COOL

icepickparty

When Tumblr teaches you more about the plague than 12 years of school ever did.

detenebrate

Just to throw a nod in, as a medieval historian, this is all credible, and is the leading theory as to the plagues effectiveness at this point. So. Enjoy your new knowledge!