Posted in Mystery Dissection, tagged anatomy, dissection, what the HELL is that? on July 29, 2012| 8 Comments »
You know the drill- tell me what you can about this rather messy dissected specimen from The Freezers. What are the structures shown? Identification to genus/species level is probably not possible, but try to pin down the group of organisms it is from as tightly as you can:
Edit: This post had a Stomach-Churning Rating of 5/10. So you were probably safe anyway; if not, share your tale of revulsion in the Comments. 🙂
Edit edit: The specimen is revealing more here; this may or may not help:
Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, tagged anatomy, CT, what the HELL is that? on July 17, 2012| 24 Comments »
Unknown CT slice
Such deep dark secrets you hold
Hiding in grayscale
Provide your answer in haiku (HU-ku for CT scan geeks!), or suffer great shame!
(answer now posted in the comments– check out the CRAZY pathology on the left jaw joint though!)
Some comparisons: first a pathological animal, then a non-pathological one. Ignore the bad segmentation job I’ve done around the eyes (thin bone region) and other areas– focus on the jaw. Also, the lack of ossicones is an age/gender issue, not pathology! The jaw arthrosis (fusion of joint; probably infection involved) is clearest in the preview image or if you pause the video at a half revolution.
Pathological left jaw (bone has grown around temporomandibular joint)
More normal jaw (and lack of ossicones/horns; probably a female since the rest of the skull is fairly mature)
Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, tagged anatomy, CT, what the HELL is that? on July 5, 2012| 16 Comments »
John, 2 mystery pictures!?!?! That’s not fair! We’ll be up for weeks puzzling over these!
Aww, deal with it. 😉
Is there a connection between these images; a clue or two; or am I just messing with you and they have nothing to do with one another? Take a gander. Take your best shot. Or take a hike!
Tell me as much as you can about the top (Mystery A) and/or bottom (Mystery B) images. Difficulty level: Integrative Anatomist.
Bon chance!
Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, tagged anatomy, CT, what the HELL is that? on June 18, 2012| 7 Comments »
As promised, another CT slice to ponder! Mystery Dissection images will be back; I want to collect some more cool photos though. Otherwise it will turn into too much “mystery hindlimb muscle of the week”. I welcome “guest posts” of Mystery Dissections if someone wants to try to stump the audience! Anyway, on with the show… This one is not so easy, but not impossible by any means, either. Tell me what you can about this mysterious object!
Posted in Mystery Anatomy Posts (all), Mystery CT, tagged anatomy, CT, what the HELL is that? on June 13, 2012| 9 Comments »
Here’s something a bit different from my usual Mystery Dissection images: a Mystery CT Slice with an indicated structure for you to identify. I can definitely do this quite regularly. And I’ll try to always draw the arrow on using MS Paint, quite shakily to indicate my frenetic mental state. Bonus points for identifying the organism. It’s not super hard but let’s see how you do with this one. Go for it!
EDIT: OK, you’ve had a good go at it, definitely. Almost everyone was more or less right in some way, so here, have a treat! We’re looking at a cross section of a ~6 month old emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) from the RVC Structure and Motion Lab’s aviary. And indeed the structure is the ventriculus; the technical term for the gizzard; the muscular organ that acts like teeth for birds, grinding up food. The proventriculus is the more enzyme-producing, non-grinding compartment connected to the ventriculus. This emu had just eaten a bit of grit (the bright spots in the scan) whereas its comrade had eaten relatively huge pebbles, which surprised me when I scanned it and certainly was not accidental ingestion. Here are some labels to help orient you in this cross-sectional x-ray CT image; we’re in the cranial (anterior) region of the thorax, just a bit behind the heart and in front of the guts:
For the less anatomically-jargon-loving, the synsacrum is the hip region (fused pelvis, backbone in birds), the femur is the thigh bone, tibia and fibula are shank bones, and the tarsometatarsus is an elongate “sole bone” of the foot; actually 3 fused metatarsals and tarsal bones integrated into one unit in birds as a likely strength:weight maximizing adaptation. The air sacs of course are outpockets of the lungs, much famed among dinosaur workers of late. Of course, Dr. Oliver Wings of the Humboldt Museum in Germany is the reigning authority on dinosaur gizzards, gastric mills and the lack thereof in many dinosaurs (most notably sauropods), so look his stuff up if you’re interested in this!
Well done and thanks for playing! Another session will come soon enough, plus I have some big posts planned for later this summer once work calms down!
Posted in Mystery Dissection, tagged anatomy, dissection, integument, tetrapod, what the HELL is that? on May 8, 2012| 10 Comments »
A superficial little post for you today, with a skinny specimen from the freezers. What is it, what/where from, etc; tell me what you know about it!
(upper object, not the ruler…)
Posted in Mystery Dissection, tagged anatomy, buddies, dissection, what the HELL is that? on April 25, 2012| 20 Comments »
Good morning, Freezerinos! Here is a twin treat for you to puzzle over. Two things, perhaps rather squidlike at first glance, but not cephalopods. There is a conceptual connection between the two images. Can you identify both of these structures? Huge bonus points if you can identify the taxon they belonged to, but stabs at it are encouraged; there are clues in the images…
(labels have been removed to protect the innocent)
Posted in Mystery Dissection, tagged anatomy, dissection, what the HELL is that? on April 16, 2012| 9 Comments »
Without further ado, what’s up with this specimen from The Freezers? What is it, what animal etc?
(admin note, 28 Oct 2012: Mystery Dissections 2-3 do not exist, mysteriously. At the time, in the jumbled freezers of my mind, they corresponded to Mystery CT Slice(1) and Mystery CT Slice 2. But we can pretend that MD2-3 are just an eternal mystery of this blog, subject of numerous conspiracy theories that you are welcome to expound upon!)
Posted in When Anatomy Goes Bad, tagged funky feet, pathology, what the HELL is that? on March 25, 2012| 11 Comments »
I will go into more detail soon on the broader subject that this involves, but am posting this image as a teaser– what’s up with this foot from my freezer?
Other than the obvious dead-ness and non-attached-to-body-ness…
Posted in Utter Frivolity, tagged Danger: Double Entendres, freezer love, juvenile antics, what the HELL is that? on March 23, 2012| 13 Comments »
Utterly puerile post ahead. I was just in one of those silly moods… Six-year-old daughter, lately with a strong potty-humour tendency, will do that to you. So with that forewarning in mind…
I was rummaging around in the back of Freezersaurus yesterday and was quite surprised to encounter this:
I am deeply, deeply disturbed. And shocked. And a bit violated. Cover your shame, Freezersaurus! Now, I’ll freely admit, penises are great. Hilarious floppy bits to the common person, and fascinating adaptations to the scientist; e.g., duck penises, alligator penises… I’ll never forget the time my invertebrate zoology teacher showed a video of barnacle penises (immobile animals that need to reproduce by copulation– you do the math). But I digress. I was conveying my disturbed feelings about this blatant ICE PENIS in my freezer. Clearly Freezersaurus was either very happy to see me; perhaps titillated by all my rummaging around; or I need to get out more and get my mind out of the anatomical gutter. C’mon, look closer:
In any other place, it might just be an icicle. But here, under the baleful Eye-of-Sauron-like gaze of Freezersaurus’s fan unit, it can be only one thing. Penisicle. I’m not sure what to do with it now. It was such an awkward moment, I had to back off and leave The Freezer to its privacy. Not sure if I can go back there, especially not alone.
My therapy sessions start Monday. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. In the meantime: My gift to you: another emanation from The Freezer; because the last Mystery Dissection pic was too hard and then too easy after a not-so-subtle nudge…
What's In John's Freezer? 