6 facts you do not know about your skeleton
Our bones are known to be living tissue capable of repairing and reshaping themselves in accordance with our daily activity.
Adam Taylor, professor and director of the Center for Clinical Anatomy Education and Rebecca Shepherd, a Ph.D. student at Lancaster University, presented six new facts that many may not know about our skeleton.
- Not everyone has the same number of bones The textbooks state that the human skeleton is composed of 206 bones.
A recent study has shown that some bones can grow over time depending on the diet. For example, the bones of the foil, ossified cartilage of the calf, have become more prevalent in the human body due to improved nutrition.
- The skeleton has no fixed length The change in the height of the child in his first year is the fastest, and also stops the length of the increase from mid to late adolescence. But the fact that our bones have stopped growing does not mean that our height is constant.
This is due to the presence of cartilage at the joints. Cartilage consists of a rubber layer of tissue consisting of water, collagen, proteoglycans, and cells.
By gravity, cartilage is compressed throughout the day, especially the spine, leading to short stature. However, these cartilages return to their original size when you relax at night in bed. This explains that the length of astronauts increases by 3% after a period in space.
It’s not just cartilage. Scientists have shown that when running, the tibia is temporarily shortened by one millimeter.
- We have greatness independent of the temple Bones in the skeleton are connected to each other. However, this does not apply to the hyoid bone, which is located at the base of the tongue in the form of a horseshoe and is held in place by the muscles and ligaments between the base of the skull and the jawbones.
This greatness enables humans to speak, breathe and swallow. They are broken only in rare cases indicating death as a result of strangulation or hanging.
- Bone marrow is not just a filler Long bones, such as the femur, are filled with bone marrow made from fat cells, blood cells, and immune cells.
The marrow is red in children, reflecting its role in making blood cells. It is yellow in adults and contains 10% of all body fat.
Bone marrow fat cells have long been thought to be nothing more than a filler, but scientists have shown that fat inside the bones has metabolic functions associated with important endocrine glands that affect the entire human body.
- the smallest bones of the temple three The smallest in the human body is the bones of the hammer, anvil and passengers. These tiny bones transmit sound vibrations from the air to the liquid in the inner ear.
These bones are unique in our bodies and are not reconstituted after the first year of life, because any change in their shape may affect hearing. These bones are important in the study of genetics and forensic medicine because they form when we are in the womb.
- Bones cause tension Our sympathetic nervous system is the mechanism by which the body prepares for its intense activity, for example, the body secretes the hormone adrenaline in response to a stressful situation.
Recently, researchers have discovered osteocalcin released by bone-forming cells as a key factor when responding to stress.
Experiments in mice have shown that those born with no ability to produce osteocalcin would not have been able to withstand stressful situations compared to normal mice.
When examining the levels of osteocalcin in humans, scientists found that its levels rise in blood and urine after exposure to stress.
Source: Al-Jazeera
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