Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Homeostasis Lab

Over the last few weeks we have been studying homestasis.  In order to demonstrate it, we performed a lab.  Below is a slide show of our process, and results.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Medical Terms

When I first thought of "medical terms" I panicked, because I knew that I would be learning a big mess of words that I had no idea what they meant.  When the words were thrown at me and explained I calmed down, because they were words that I had at least heard before even if I didn't know the meaning.  Some of them were very easy to infer, such as medial.  This means medium, and when you say m-e-d-i-a-l, it is very easy to get medium out of it.  Metabolism is another very familiar word to us.  When people talk about eating the first word that often comes to mind is metabolism because without it, our body's would not be able to handle food properly and we would be much over weight.  This is why people often notice thin people as having a "good metabolism".  When you heard the word distal, what often comes to mind? Distance I would hope.  Well that is exactly right, when a body part is distal, that means that it is far away from what you are comparing it to.  An example would be your hand to your shoulder.  There is a far distance between therefore, they are distal.  The opposite of distal would be proximal. Which you can infer would be close together if you know what distal means.  An example would be your arm to your shoulder, they are very close together therefore, they are proximal.
When I think of superficial I think of not real or not being able to see it, but in medical terms it is the exact opposite, and this is how I remember what it is.  It means "on the surface", which would be visible to us.  The opposite of superficial in medical terms would be deep, this means exactly what it sounds like, things that are not visible to the eye.  Such as, internal organs, bones, etc. 
There are also many medical regions, two that are really easy to remember are superior and inferior. Superior is up by the head and interior is by the feet.  So your neck would be superior and your feet legs would be inferior.  
After looking at all this mess of terms, it really wasn't hard to understand.  I connected them with myself and made ways for me to remember them.
  

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Levels of the body

After learning about homeostasis, medical terms, and organization of the body, I have decided to make my first post about the organization of the body.  


There are five levels that have to happen before the chemical reaches the organismal level.  First, a chemical, which are atoms that are combined to form molecules.  Once these molecules are formed they turn into cells, which are made out of molecules.  After they have reached the cellular level they turn into tissues.  Each tissue consists of similar types of cells. Then the tissues combine to make organs.  After organs are made it turns into the organismal system, this a system that consists of many different organs that work together.  Finally it is at it's last stage, which is finally the organism!  This is finally the whole process and after all that work, a human body is finally up and running!