Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Mystery CT’ Category

Mystery CT 15: Fifteen Slices of Amazeballs

Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, tagged , , , , on December 29, 2014| 9 Comments »

I hinted at another post in last round, and here I deliver. (The “amazeballs” in the title is a running joke with our Xmas guests here in England, but it applies to the subject of these images, too… which will be the subject of a future blog post involving a dissection of the subject!)

This will end the 2014 round of Mystery Anatomy. What 2015 will bring, I am not sure, but here we have 15 images for my 15th mystery CT post and 2015 around the corner.

I do have a new, fun regular anatomy post idea planned for 2015 but I’ll explain that later.

Stomach-Churning Rating: 2/10; digital images; the cadaver is gutted but I am chuffed.

Mystery Anatomy 2014: same rules as before.

Identify (1) the animal shown in the 15 slices, to species level (max. 5 pts), and then the major features (anatomical regions) evident in as many of the 15 slices as you can; details help (max. 5 pts for thoroughness and accuracy). 

Difficulty: No scale, sort of. Otherwise, pretty easy.

Answers will come on New Year’s Day, to ease your hangovers (or encourage vomiting).

1

1

2

2

3

3

4

4

5

5

6

6

7

7

8

8

9

9

10

10

11

11

12

12

13

13

14

14

MysteryCT15(15)

15

Onward!

Read Full Post »

Mystery CT/Dissection 14+15: Double Trouble!

Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, Mystery Dissection, tagged , , , on December 14, 2014| 21 Comments »

It has been a long time since we had some Mystery Anatomy fun here, so I am cutting loose with a double-barrelled blast of images– dive for cover!

I’m also giving out a Crimbo present as a bigger post, on a special day coming soon, count on that. This is just an advent snack.

Stomach-Churning Rating: 2/10 and 7/10: digital body and glistening, snotty.

Mystery Anatomy 2014: same rules as before; remember that the scoreboard has been reset.

Identify (1) the animal shown in the four-panel top images (CT scan/reconstruction), and (2) the DIFFERENT animal (and/or the main central, pink structure) shown in the big, gooey bottom image (Dissection). No special rules. Potential for double points!

And someone will get these, I am sure. This might be the final round of 2014’s Mystery Anatomy game.

Difficulty: Plenty.

Mystery CT 14

Mystery CT 14

Mystery Anatomy 15

Mystery Anatomy 15

Go forth!

Read Full Post »

Mystery CT 13: Zounds, It’s Round!

Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, tagged , , on September 14, 2014| 22 Comments »

MysteryCT12
Here’s an image that struck me as cool and possibly perplexing. And so we have another Mystery Anatomy post! Brought to you by some free time on my current trip to Gondwanaland.

Stomach-Churning Rating: 1/10; simple CT scan slice… of something.

Mystery Anatomy 2014: same rules as before; remember that the scoreboard has been reset.

Identify the animal in the CT slice shown above, as specifically as you can. No special rules.

Difficulty: Plenty.

Begin!

 

Read Full Post »

Mystery CT 12: Summer Superhero Movie Edition!

Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, tagged , , , on May 4, 2014| 9 Comments »

Short and sweet post here; it’s sunny outside and I want to be there BBQing!

I had a buried folder of CT files labelled as a species of fish, but on digging them out and segmenting them I realize it is not what I expected (inner fish or not!), as you will see.

Stomach-Churning Rating: 2/10; simple CT scan of a body.

Mystery Anatomy 2014: same rules as before; remember that the scoreboard has been reset.

Identify the animal in the CT scout/pilot image below, as specifically as you can. But… (READ THE SENTENCE BELOW FIRST BEFORE ANSWERING!)

Today’s special rule: Summertime is coming and that means superhero films! Your answer must be in the form of a dialogue between a superhero(ine) and a supervillain(ess)! 

Difficulty: Even I am not 100% sure what this is but I have a decent idea. Not super hard, but not a super good segmentation.

Pow! Bam! Biff! Go forth and conquer! Then invite the Human Torch to your BBQ.

 

Read Full Post »

Freezermas Day 1: Mystery CT Slice 11

Posted in Freezermas, Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, tagged , , on February 9, 2014| 20 Comments »

Seven dead old limbs
Seven science wins
Seven icy forms beheld
And our trip begins

Seven anat’my jokes
Seven bloody posts
Seven are our sci-comm fires
Seven frozen choirs…

(props to Iron Maiden’s “Moonchild” opening lyrics, from the iconic “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” concept album, of lofty, epic, frozen, anatomy-bearing motifs)

7th Son

So we come full circle to another Freezermas, another foolhardy attempt to honour Charles Darwin (his birthday is Weds 12th Feb) with seven blog posts in seven days!

There will be mysterious morphology! Expositions of new projects and a new paper! Detailed dissections showing amazing anatomy! Silly songs and other nonsense! So much more that I have no idea about at this writing but will surely come to me! (there is an amorphous plan)

Last year I invoked the 7 days of Freezermas song, but this year the songcraft has changed. Christmas is so 2013! Time for a 1970smodern approach! We’re doing hard rock/heavy metal concept album songs and motifs each day. I started off with one above. Future posts will try to stick to a theme of songs/albums featuring numbers, counting down from seven. Because we all know that Darwin loved to rock. But let’s get on with the real rockin’: the freezer-based anatomical science!

Today we’ll ease you in to Freezermas: The Concept Album, like the acoustic intro of Moonchild did, with some simple Mystery CT Anatomy…

(insert guitar solo here while you mentally prepare yourself)

Stomach-Churning Rating: 2/10; simple CT scan of a body.

Mystery Anatomy 2014: same rules as before; remember that the scoreboard has been reset.

Identify the animal in the CT scout/pilot image below, as specifically as you can. 

Today’s special rule: Your answer must be in the form of a lyric (at least 2 lines) from a song by Queen (Google some if you’re unfamiliar– but how?).

Why Queen? One should never question Queen; not a little or a lot.

Difficulty: Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

You will probably want to click to emgiganticate the image below.

Mystery CT 11

Don’t let this one drive you Stone Cold Crazy! I know you’re feeling Under Pressure; just Tie Your Mother Down and play The Game.

Read Full Post »

Mystery CT Slice 10: What’s this Lumpy Thing?

Posted in Mystery CT, tagged , , on October 31, 2013| 7 Comments »

Well lookie here… it’s a new Mystery CT slice challenge! And it’s appearing while Society of Vertebrate Paleontology members are busy drinking and eating at the conference’s welcome reception– how naughty of me!

What is it, what species, etc.– tell me what you can.

RULE: Your answer must involve excessive alliteration!!!

Prodigious perambulations of appropriate prose promise to procure prodigious points!

Remember: the scoreboard is here.

Difficulty: lumpy + alliteration + possible intoxication if you are an SVP attendee (John whistles innocently).

Stomach-Churning Rating: 1/10 unless you have lump-associated PTSD.

Proceed, plucky puzzle ponderers!

Mystery CT 10

EDIT: These images give the answer and show some cool features. It’s an Asian elephant skull, NHMUK 1984.516, of a juvenile animal (probably a UK zoo animal). Gotta love that pneumaticity!
Elephant skull _Se1_Im002

And another view:

Elephant skull _Se1_Im001

Read Full Post »

Mystery CT Slice 9: It’s not Grover!

Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, Mystery Museum Specimen, tagged , , , , on June 1, 2013| 17 Comments »

Just a quickie here! I’m finishing a little sabbatical at Brown University and had a bit of downtime, then ran across this confusing image that seems to have loveable, sometimes-superhero Sesame Street character Grover in it, and also poses a tough but solveable Mystery CT Slice post! So go for it! Can you find Grover? (no points for that) and can you tell us (1) what the image is of (animal/species, region of anatomy, identifiable bits), and (2) what the heck is wrong with this image and why?

Scoreboard is here for easy reference.

Difficulty: fuzzy image, amusing childhood memories.

Stomach-Churning Rating: 1/10 unless you have bad childhood memories associated with Grover.

This is the mystery image below, not the Grover image above! You cheeky monkey.

No rhyming in your answers or you lose 10000000 points! Grover is grumpy today and hates rhymes. He had a bit too much Hefeweissen and polka music last night. Pity the poor creature.

MysteryCT9

Read Full Post »

Mystery CT 8: A Headless Beastie

Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, tagged , , , on May 12, 2013| 17 Comments »

I have a rant to do, and an anatomy vignette or two, but before I do, here is a puzzleroo: It’s a reconstructed CT scan. I’ve digitally cut off the head to be tricksy. Come on man, I ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie! What is this beastie? Not hard in the leasty.

(your answer needs neither rhyme nor Shakespearean meter, but do take the time and provide the Latin binomen for reala– don’t just call it Peter or Sheila!)

Stomach-Churning Rating: 1/10. It won’t bite.

Difficulty: decapitation.

Read Full Post »

Mystery CT Slice 7: Another puzzling pilot scan

Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, tagged , , , on November 14, 2012| 21 Comments »

More mysterious morphology for you

I hope that you like it too

But there is a trick

The bone here is thick

And the beast might be rude, it’s true!

(What is it and what from? Answers must be in limerick form to count. Pilot scans explained in this post.)

This post is dedicated in memory of the late, great Professor Farish Jenkins, Jr; one of the best anatomists and functional morphologists ever. Excellent retrospectives here and here and here.

Aaaaaand here is the current scoreboard, as promised last time; starting from this post onwards–

RULES: 5 pts for correct, spot-on and FIRST right answer, 4 pts for very close or second, 3 pts for partly right or third in line with right answer, 2 pts for a good try, 1 pt consolation prize for just trying, or for a good joke!

If you post as “anonymous” name then it all goes into the same tomb of the unknown anatomist.

If you change your answer, you lose ~1 pt. Answers posted via Twitter, Facebook, email or whatever do not count! No appeals. I am a frigid dictator. 🙂

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Mystery CT Slice 6: Mysterious Pilot Scan

Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, tagged , , , , on October 2, 2012| 13 Comments »

Hi folks, as my birthday present to you, and big thanks for racking up 70,000 blog views in 7 months (and my 50th post!), here is a new installment of Mystery CT Slice!

This time with a pilot (or scout) scan of an odd object. A pilot/scout scan is a quick, low exposure scan used to plan a series of CT slices, which shows a a larger area that is then narrowed down to focus just on the object of interest and a bit of buffer room for those slices. It generally isn’t used for much else, but sometimes can make a neat picture. As you can see here, the pilot scan area was excessively massive relative to the object. The two odd objects below the primary object of interest are scanning phantoms, used to calibrate density from Hounsfield units to actual real-world density (one is water at 1 g/cm3; the other is “cortical bone” at 1.69 g/cm3). Ignore them.

But what is this object and from what taxon? Be as specific as you can, but pinning it down to genus/species level will be bloody hard!

Stomach Churning Rating: 1/10; it doesn’t get much tamer than a pilot scan.

Difficulty Level: small image, hazy, not a lot of diagnostic traits visible, 1 main element.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »