via staceythinx: If you are any good with those old “magic eye” posters and interested in anatomy, check out vovel123’s incredible gallery of stereogram CT scans. There are nearly 700 incredibly cool stereograms waiting to be seen in all their 3D glory. These take a little practice to get right, but luckily after several years of reading biochemistry papers I can do stereograms in my sleep (you biochemists and crystallographers out there know what I’m talkin’ about, right?). Click the images to make them big, for starters. If you allow your eyes to cross a little, then the two outside images will cross over in the center. Relax your eyes there and don’t fight the weirdness. You’ll be seeing 3D before you know it! The full gallery is way too much fun.
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via staceythinx: If you are any good with those old “magic eye” posters and interested in anatomy, check out vovel123’s incredible gallery of stereogram CT scans. There are nearly 700 incredibly cool stereograms waiting to be seen in all their 3D glory. These take a little practice to get right, but luckily after several years of reading biochemistry papers I can do stereograms in my sleep (you biochemists and crystallographers out there know what I’m talkin’ about, right?). Click the images to make them big, for starters. If you allow your eyes to cross a little, then the two outside images will cross over in the center. Relax your eyes there and don’t fight the weirdness. You’ll be seeing 3D before you know it! The full gallery is way too much fun.
Zoom Info
via staceythinx: If you are any good with those old “magic eye” posters and interested in anatomy, check out vovel123’s incredible gallery of stereogram CT scans. There are nearly 700 incredibly cool stereograms waiting to be seen in all their 3D glory. These take a little practice to get right, but luckily after several years of reading biochemistry papers I can do stereograms in my sleep (you biochemists and crystallographers out there know what I’m talkin’ about, right?). Click the images to make them big, for starters. If you allow your eyes to cross a little, then the two outside images will cross over in the center. Relax your eyes there and don’t fight the weirdness. You’ll be seeing 3D before you know it! The full gallery is way too much fun.
Zoom Info
via staceythinx: If you are any good with those old “magic eye” posters and interested in anatomy, check out vovel123’s incredible gallery of stereogram CT scans. There are nearly 700 incredibly cool stereograms waiting to be seen in all their 3D glory. These take a little practice to get right, but luckily after several years of reading biochemistry papers I can do stereograms in my sleep (you biochemists and crystallographers out there know what I’m talkin’ about, right?). Click the images to make them big, for starters. If you allow your eyes to cross a little, then the two outside images will cross over in the center. Relax your eyes there and don’t fight the weirdness. You’ll be seeing 3D before you know it! The full gallery is way too much fun.
Zoom Info
via staceythinx: If you are any good with those old “magic eye” posters and interested in anatomy, check out vovel123’s incredible gallery of stereogram CT scans. There are nearly 700 incredibly cool stereograms waiting to be seen in all their 3D glory. These take a little practice to get right, but luckily after several years of reading biochemistry papers I can do stereograms in my sleep (you biochemists and crystallographers out there know what I’m talkin’ about, right?). Click the images to make them big, for starters. If you allow your eyes to cross a little, then the two outside images will cross over in the center. Relax your eyes there and don’t fight the weirdness. You’ll be seeing 3D before you know it! The full gallery is way too much fun.
Zoom Info

via staceythinx:

If you are any good with those old “magic eye” posters and interested in anatomy, check out vovel123’s incredible gallery of stereogram CT scans. There are nearly 700 incredibly cool stereograms waiting to be seen in all their 3D glory.

These take a little practice to get right, but luckily after several years of reading biochemistry papers I can do stereograms in my sleep (you biochemists and crystallographers out there know what I’m talkin’ about, right?).

Click the images to make them big, for starters. If you allow your eyes to cross a little, then the two outside images will cross over in the center. Relax your eyes there and don’t fight the weirdness. You’ll be seeing 3D before you know it!

The full gallery is way too much fun.

Anatomical Mythology Meets Atomic Biology  … or “What nuclear weapons can teach us about how we grow new cells”. Our bodies are no strangers to mythology. While much of our anatomy is named for the doctors and scientists who first described them, we have turned to the ancients for inspiration on a few occasions. Take the Adam’s apple, named for one half of the biblical supergroup “Eden in Genesis”, whose first album The Creation Story has gone triple unobtainium. Then there’s the C1 vertebra, nearest the skull, named for Atlas upon whose shoulders the world rested. And fans of shirtless David Beckham will be quite familiar with Apollo’s belt, or the tapering oblique abdominal muscles that draw a line from hip to happy place. (I knew Becks and I had something in common … j/k still working on the crunches) Dig inside the brain and we encounter the hippocampus, named for the mythical sea-horse with which it shares its folded, tapered shape. We see a ram-like image of Zeus invoked to describe the area of the hippocampus affected by the disease known as “Ammon’s Horn Sclerosis”. And of course, we are left with the most famous of all, the Achilles tendon, named for the fatal foot weakness of the powerful warrior. And that weakness still plagues us today. The unfortunate thing about injuring a tendon like the Achilles is that they are notoriously difficult to heel heal. Thanks to a few atomic bombs, we now know why. When the U.S. and Soviets were in the business of testing atomic weapons in the 1950’s and 60’s, they unleashed an enormous amount of carbon-14 into the atmosphere. This heavy carbon isotope made it into the biosphere by way of plants, and into people’s bodies through what they ate. The percentage of carbon-14 in the tissue of someone alive then can be used to date the age of a particular cell thanks to radioactive decay. By analyzing this Cold War leftover, Danish scientists have shown that Achilles tendon tissue is basically frozen in time when you’re a teenager. As an adult, you just don’t grow new Achilles tendon tissue, which is why those injuries are just so naggingly difficult to come back from. Guess what? This isn’t the first time atom bombs have been used in biology. The idea that most our brain doesn’t have the ability to grow new neurons in adulthood was proven using the same technique in 2006. We’ve gained lots of knowledge thanks to the atomic age, but perhaps one day atomic weapons will become stories of a war-obsessed ancient time, just like those myths that inspired our anatomy. (via NPR)
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Anatomical Mythology Meets Atomic Biology 

… or “What nuclear weapons can teach us about how we grow new cells”.

Our bodies are no strangers to mythology. While much of our anatomy is named for the doctors and scientists who first described them, we have turned to the ancients for inspiration on a few occasions. Take the Adam’s apple, named for one half of the biblical supergroup “Eden in Genesis”, whose first album The Creation Story has gone triple unobtainium. Then there’s the C1 vertebra, nearest the skull, named for Atlas upon whose shoulders the world rested. And fans of shirtless David Beckham will be quite familiar with Apollo’s belt, or the tapering oblique abdominal muscles that draw a line from hip to happy place. (I knew Becks and I had something in common … j/k still working on the crunches)

Dig inside the brain and we encounter the hippocampus, named for the mythical sea-horse with which it shares its folded, tapered shape. We see a ram-like image of Zeus invoked to describe the area of the hippocampus affected by the disease known as “Ammon’s Horn Sclerosis”. And of course, we are left with the most famous of all, the Achilles tendon, named for the fatal foot weakness of the powerful warrior. And that weakness still plagues us today.

The unfortunate thing about injuring a tendon like the Achilles is that they are notoriously difficult to heel heal. Thanks to a few atomic bombs, we now know why.

When the U.S. and Soviets were in the business of testing atomic weapons in the 1950’s and 60’s, they unleashed an enormous amount of carbon-14 into the atmosphere. This heavy carbon isotope made it into the biosphere by way of plants, and into people’s bodies through what they ate. The percentage of carbon-14 in the tissue of someone alive then can be used to date the age of a particular cell thanks to radioactive decay.

By analyzing this Cold War leftover, Danish scientists have shown that Achilles tendon tissue is basically frozen in time when you’re a teenager. As an adult, you just don’t grow new Achilles tendon tissue, which is why those injuries are just so naggingly difficult to come back from.

Guess what? This isn’t the first time atom bombs have been used in biology. The idea that most our brain doesn’t have the ability to grow new neurons in adulthood was proven using the same technique in 2006.

We’ve gained lots of knowledge thanks to the atomic age, but perhaps one day atomic weapons will become stories of a war-obsessed ancient time, just like those myths that inspired our anatomy.

(via NPR)

Source: NPR

The Origins of the Heart The traditional heart symbol has been used to represent love and devotion for hundreds of years, but where did it come from? Because it only very loosely resembles the organ it is supposed to symbolize. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle popularized the idea that the heart was the seat of passion and emotions. His early anatomical studies also incorrectly claimed that it only had three chambers, much like the shape that persists today. The Greek colony of Cyrene (in modern-day Libya) also holds claim to some heart-shaped history. Beginning in the 7th century BCE, they made a boatload of coin trading silphium, a now-extinct plant whose seeds were used to season food and for medicine. They loved it so much that they put it on their money! Oh, and it was allegedly a contraceptive, which is a whole other kind of love … The heart shape really began to take over the Western world in the 1600’s, after Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque reported a vision of Christ holding a traditional three-pointed heart surrounded by a crown of thorns. the Catholic Church owned the modern image of the heart, and its association with St. Valentine, until it lost a bidding war with Hallmark. Read more about the history of the heart shape at Slate.
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The Origins of the Heart The traditional heart symbol has been used to represent love and devotion for hundreds of years, but where did it come from? Because it only very loosely resembles the organ it is supposed to symbolize. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle popularized the idea that the heart was the seat of passion and emotions. His early anatomical studies also incorrectly claimed that it only had three chambers, much like the shape that persists today. The Greek colony of Cyrene (in modern-day Libya) also holds claim to some heart-shaped history. Beginning in the 7th century BCE, they made a boatload of coin trading silphium, a now-extinct plant whose seeds were used to season food and for medicine. They loved it so much that they put it on their money! Oh, and it was allegedly a contraceptive, which is a whole other kind of love … The heart shape really began to take over the Western world in the 1600’s, after Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque reported a vision of Christ holding a traditional three-pointed heart surrounded by a crown of thorns. the Catholic Church owned the modern image of the heart, and its association with St. Valentine, until it lost a bidding war with Hallmark. Read more about the history of the heart shape at Slate.
Zoom Info
The Origins of the Heart The traditional heart symbol has been used to represent love and devotion for hundreds of years, but where did it come from? Because it only very loosely resembles the organ it is supposed to symbolize. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle popularized the idea that the heart was the seat of passion and emotions. His early anatomical studies also incorrectly claimed that it only had three chambers, much like the shape that persists today. The Greek colony of Cyrene (in modern-day Libya) also holds claim to some heart-shaped history. Beginning in the 7th century BCE, they made a boatload of coin trading silphium, a now-extinct plant whose seeds were used to season food and for medicine. They loved it so much that they put it on their money! Oh, and it was allegedly a contraceptive, which is a whole other kind of love … The heart shape really began to take over the Western world in the 1600’s, after Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque reported a vision of Christ holding a traditional three-pointed heart surrounded by a crown of thorns. the Catholic Church owned the modern image of the heart, and its association with St. Valentine, until it lost a bidding war with Hallmark. Read more about the history of the heart shape at Slate.
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The Origins of the Heart

The traditional heart symbol has been used to represent love and devotion for hundreds of years, but where did it come from? Because it only very loosely resembles the organ it is supposed to symbolize.

In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle popularized the idea that the heart was the seat of passion and emotions. His early anatomical studies also incorrectly claimed that it only had three chambers, much like the shape that persists today.

The Greek colony of Cyrene (in modern-day Libya) also holds claim to some heart-shaped history. Beginning in the 7th century BCE, they made a boatload of coin trading silphium, a now-extinct plant whose seeds were used to season food and for medicine. They loved it so much that they put it on their money! Oh, and it was allegedly a contraceptive, which is a whole other kind of love …

The heart shape really began to take over the Western world in the 1600’s, after Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque reported a vision of Christ holding a traditional three-pointed heart surrounded by a crown of thorns. the Catholic Church owned the modern image of the heart, and its association with St. Valentine, until it lost a bidding war with Hallmark.

Read more about the history of the heart shape at Slate.

He shoots what? From where? I hate to be the one to bring you this awkwardly bad news, but had Peter Parker’s bite from a radioactive spider actually resulted in him developing the ability to spin webs exactly like a spider does … they wouldn’t be coming out of his hands. I’ll let you examine the image of a spider’s anatomy at the top and come to your own realization. Yep, that’s right. Spider Man should be shooting webs out of something that rhymes with his “paint”. Check out the full horrible truth from Bug Girl. If you like this then you’ll love this post about the horrible physiological and psychological consequences of being Aquaman. Can you think of any other comics that would be ridiculous if they were more scientifically accurate?
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He shoots what? From where? I hate to be the one to bring you this awkwardly bad news, but had Peter Parker’s bite from a radioactive spider actually resulted in him developing the ability to spin webs exactly like a spider does … they wouldn’t be coming out of his hands. I’ll let you examine the image of a spider’s anatomy at the top and come to your own realization. Yep, that’s right. Spider Man should be shooting webs out of something that rhymes with his “paint”. Check out the full horrible truth from Bug Girl. If you like this then you’ll love this post about the horrible physiological and psychological consequences of being Aquaman. Can you think of any other comics that would be ridiculous if they were more scientifically accurate?
Zoom Info

He shoots what? From where?

I hate to be the one to bring you this awkwardly bad news, but had Peter Parker’s bite from a radioactive spider actually resulted in him developing the ability to spin webs exactly like a spider does … they wouldn’t be coming out of his hands.

I’ll let you examine the image of a spider’s anatomy at the top and come to your own realization. Yep, that’s right. Spider Man should be shooting webs out of something that rhymes with his “paint”.

Check out the full horrible truth from Bug Girl.

If you like this then you’ll love this post about the horrible physiological and psychological consequences of being Aquaman.

Can you think of any other comics that would be ridiculous if they were more scientifically accurate?

E.T. Was Basically A Medical Catastrophe A case report in the British Medical Journal (available here for those with access) has studied the famous 1982 temporary stranding of a young alien life form in suburban southern California. After an in-depth analysis of gross anatomy and the E.T.’s forced hospitalization, the so-called “alien botanist” is determined to be essentially a medical catastrophe, presenting multiple severe pathologies and medical maladies.  Who approved this guy for spaceflight? A list of anatomical abnormalities: Possible Perthe’s disease (incorrect formation of the femur) Lower limb lymphoedema (swelling of the stubby legs) Centripetal adiposity, possible metabolic syndrome (he’s basically chubby) Congenital dextrocardia (not only does his heart glow, it’s completely out of order) Functional acetaldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency (extreme intoxication and disorientation after merely one can of beer) Complete absence of genitalia Clubbed digits (the odd swelling at the tip of his remarkably luminous fingertip) After entering a state of shock and delrium, perhaps from malnutrition due to a diet consisting solely of beer and Reese’s Pieces, he entered cardiac arrest and failed to respond to resuscitation. His body was placed in the freezer room quickly enough to prevent brain damage from lack of oxygen, however. This preservation of brain function was key as ”ET made an exceptional functional recovery, balancing in the basket of Elliott’s bicycle and performing feats of telekinesis en route to the site of his eventual departure.” Perhaps if extraterrestrial travelers will carry more complete medical history or medical ID bracelets, better treatment may be applied in future cases.
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E.T. Was Basically A Medical Catastrophe

A case report in the British Medical Journal (available here for those with access) has studied the famous 1982 temporary stranding of a young alien life form in suburban southern California. After an in-depth analysis of gross anatomy and the E.T.’s forced hospitalization, the so-called “alien botanist” is determined to be essentially a medical catastrophe, presenting multiple severe pathologies and medical maladies. 

Who approved this guy for spaceflight?

A list of anatomical abnormalities:

  • Possible Perthe’s disease (incorrect formation of the femur)
  • Lower limb lymphoedema (swelling of the stubby legs)
  • Centripetal adiposity, possible metabolic syndrome (he’s basically chubby)
  • Congenital dextrocardia (not only does his heart glow, it’s completely out of order)
  • Functional acetaldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency (extreme intoxication and disorientation after merely one can of beer)
  • Complete absence of genitalia
  • Clubbed digits (the odd swelling at the tip of his remarkably luminous fingertip)

After entering a state of shock and delrium, perhaps from malnutrition due to a diet consisting solely of beer and Reese’s Pieces, he entered cardiac arrest and failed to respond to resuscitation. His body was placed in the freezer room quickly enough to prevent brain damage from lack of oxygen, however.

This preservation of brain function was key as ”ET made an exceptional functional recovery, balancing in the basket of Elliott’s bicycle and performing feats of telekinesis en route to the site of his eventual departure.”

Perhaps if extraterrestrial travelers will carry more complete medical history or medical ID bracelets, better treatment may be applied in future cases.

We Were All Female

AsapSCIENCE brings us an important lesson on human developmental biology. All men - yes, even the manliest of men *cough* - began as females. Sort of.

See, the default developmental pathway for a zygote is toward female. That’s due to signals that come from genes on the X chromosome. In XY males, however, a special Y-chromosome gene inhibits just a few of those X chromosome genes and tunes the embryo to respond to testosterone. This takes what would become female parts and “adjusts” them slightly to become the second male brain.

Yep … your family jewels used to belong to the princess. This also answers the “why men have nipples” question.

On a weird science side note, when this system malfunctions in development, the results can be pretty interesting. In a condition called androgen insensitivity syndrome, the embryo is XY, but can’t respond to those early testosterone signals. Instead, it follows the “default” pathway and develops all of the outer female anatomy (vagina, etc.) but none of the inner (ovaries, uterus). Male, but female!

Source: youtube.com