Arts, Physiology

Every-body loves anatomy

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I thought it was finally about time I wrote a post about the fantastic Street Anatomy blog.  Billing itself as ‘obsessively covering the use of human anatomy in medicine, art and design’, the site highlights tons of interesting uses of human anatomy in everything from fashion to advertising.

Although a lot of the art the blog features is amazing – photography, jewelery and album covers to name a few examples – I’m most intrigued by all the wacky products they pick out, the perfect present for any medically minded friend!

Med student cousin sweating about an anatomy exam?  Give him a sneaky solution by getting him the answers on a t-shirt!

lungs-shirt

Girlfriend stamped all over your heart? You can do the same to her, albeit a bit more literally, with these trainers.

heart-trainers

Does your little sister want to be a doctor when she grows up? A anatomical My Little Pony will give her a headstart!

anatomical-my-little-pony

If it’s my birthday you’re shopping for though, I want some anatomical bed sheets.  Or one of these please.

anatomical-blanket

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Physiology

Patriotism and physiology – Olympics 2008

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I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the Olympics this summer. Of course, this is due in no small part to Great Britain’s success, coming fourth in the medal table – the highest for 100 years.

As well as being glued to the cycling, I’ve also been fascinated by the medical and science stories this two-week celebration of human performance has thrown up.

For example, did you know that American man-machine Michael Phelps might have subclinical Marfan syndrome, a nasty connective tissue disorder that could be responsible for his giant armspan? Or that a high prevalence of gene mutation that affects the performance of fast-twitch muscles could have helped the Jamaicans clean up in the sprinting events?

How about the suggestion that the high number of world records broken in swimming at this Olympics could be thanks to the depth and breadth of the pool at the Bejing Water Cube? Or that the records broken on track and field are because athletes have trained to use oxygen more efficiently? And it seems that we’ll never know how old the Chinese gymnasts are thanks to the lack of biomarkers to accurately identify age, although the clever hacking that caught them out in the first place is certainly pretty damning.

Although only five athletes were disqualified this time, sadly doping is still going on at the games, but the methods – and ways of catching the cheats – are becoming more complicated, including microdosing techniques and possibly elaborate genetic and growth factor approaches in the future.

So congratulations to Beijing for hosting a successful games and to the athletes for for showing us what the human body is truly capable of.

See you in 2012 – I’ll be at the velodrome!


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