Link: Anatomical models
The Age has an article describing the work of two anatomists who want to bring new high-fidelity plastic models into medical anatomy training: “Buster, the p...
All posts tagged with anatomy
Quote: Mary Doria Russell on the protective browridge
Doing some reading on supraorbital torus anatomy today, ran across this snarky passage from Mary Doria Russell’s (1985) paper, “The Supraorbital Torus: A Mos...
The developmental obstetrical dilemma
Alik Huseynov and colleagues have a data-rich paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examining age-related changes in the human pelvis:...
The foramen magnum does not point to locomotor adaptation
Aidan Ruth and colleagues in the Journal of Human Evolution have an interesting paper with the seemingly counter-intuitive result that foramen magnum orienta...
Notable: Scapula morphology in humans and African apes
Notable paper: Green, David J., Ted A. Spiewak, Brielle Seitelman and Philipp Gunz. 2016. Scapular shape of extant hominoids and the African ape/modern human...
Link: My essay on hand evolution and the origin of humans
Last year I published an essay in Nautilus, titled “Are humans the greatest things created by the human hand?”. The article has been making the rounds on soc...
Throwing out hypotheses about throwing
Neil Roach and colleagues have written a paper in Nature this week about the role of elastic energy storage in human throwing Roach:elastic:2013. I like the ...
The scapula and shoulder girdle
The bones that make up the shoulder are the scapula, clavicle and humerus.
Laboratory inquiry 1: Outgroup
Your task in the first laboratory inquiry assignment is to develop a hypothesis about the anatomy of the common ancestor of two species of anthropoid primate...
How do primates move around?
The diversification of the first primates from other early mammals took place partly because the ancestors of the primates came to inhabit a unique environme...
A quick start to the skeleton
In this course, you will be working extensively with skeletal anatomy. The skeleton provides the primary evidence about our evolutionary history. Skeletal ev...
A quick start on anatomical directions
When talking about bones and teeth, we will need to use several terms to orient ourselves. Some of the terms are obvious, like right and left. Other intuitiv...
Creative anatomy
Mike Taylor from Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week shows how anatomists get creative with their measurement instruments: “How to measure necks using Dupl...
Mandibles of Neandertals and modern humans
Many of the differences between Neandertals and modern humans can be found in the face and jaw. Neandertals had relatively tall faces, and substantial progna...
Mandibles of early Homo and robust australopithecines
For anthropologists, Africa was a point of exceptional diversity between 2 million and 1.5 million years ago. In both East and South Africa, the fossil recor...
The pelvis of Australopithecus
The hominid pelvis is much shorter than ape pelves, with muscle attachments reoriented for effective walking.
Neuron theory
Ferris Jabr has begun a series called “Know your neurons”, which will be a tour of the types of neurons. The first installment (“Know Your Neurons: The Disco...
Art appreciation
Jonathan Jones muses on two exhibitions of Leonardo’s work, one on paintings and the other on anatomical drawings (“Is Leonardo da Vinci a great artist or a ...
Into the belly of the whale
Carl Zimmer profiles anatomist Joy Reidenberg, who has scored a coup for public communication of science on the BBC show, Inside Nature’s Giants: “From Insid...
Human and ape feet
At this station, you’ll find some articulated human feet. “Articulated” means that the bones are assembled together at their joints – two bones that articula...
Looking over a Neandertal's shoulder
A study by Di Vincenzo, Steven Churchill and Giorgio Manzi has fallen into the early drawer of the Journal of Human Evolution: “The Vindija Neanderthal scapu...
Neandertal postcrania
Neandertals were very robustly built. This means that they had relatively thick bones, with thick layers of cortical bone. It also means they had relatively ...
Neandertal cranial anatomy
The Neandertals were Late Pleistocene inhabitants of Europe, and their skeletal remains were among the first fossil humans that scientists recognized as repr...
Modern human crania
By the end of the Middle Pleistocene, people throughout the inhabited world had attained brain sizes in the range of living people. Technology had ad- vanced...
Cranial features and race
Individuals whose ancestry derives mostly from different parts of the world sometimes have different cranial features. Forensic anthropologists have studied ...
Sex and the mandibles of early hominins
Determining sex from human mandibles (as you will do in another part of this lab) depends on a series of characteristics that tend to differ between male and...
Mandibles and sex
The mandible can provide important evidence in assessment of sex from skeletal remains. Male mandibles are generally heavier and larger than female mandibles...
Determining sex from the cranium
The cranium has a very distinctive shape, which varies between people to some extent. Some features that vary between individuals in their size or shape are...
The occipital bone
The cranium includes all the bones of the head. Altogether, there are 26 cranial bones plus the mandible. Except for the mandible, these bones mostly are fus...
The frontal bone
The cranium includes all the bones of the head. Altogether, there are 26 cranial bones plus the mandible. Except for the mandible, these bones mostly are fus...
Structure of the pelvis
The pelvis is a complex made of three bones: the sacrum and the left and right os coxae, also called “innominate” bones. The sacrum forms the posterior part ...
Sexual dimorphism of the pelvis
The pelvis is the most accurate indicator of sex in the human skeleton. Its central role in the birth process means that the pelvis has several shape differe...
Premolars
The premolars are directly distal to (behind) the canines. Generally there are two premolars in each quadrant. Counting backward from the front of the jaw, t...
Premolars in primates
Different kinds of primates have different numbers of premolars in their dentitions. The ancestral number of premolars in primates is three in each quadrant ...
Molars
The most distal teeth are molars. Most humans have three molars, but many — especially in America — have their third molars (called wisdom teeth) extracted. ...
Meet Australopithecus boisei
The robust australopithecines existed between 2.5 and 1.5 million years ago. At this station are skeletal remains from two kinds of robust australopithecine....
The temporal bone
The cranium includes all the bones of the head. Altogether, there are 26 cranial bones plus the mandible. Except for the mandible, these bones mostly are fus...
Size of the external auditory meatus
This is a very simple lab station. The size of the opening for the ear canal, called the external auditory meatus, is larger in humans than in most other kin...
Earlobes
The form of the earlobes varies in humans. At one extreme, the lowest point on the earlobe is attached to the flesh of the cheek. If not, the earlobe is to v...
Radius and ulna
The radius and ulna are the two bones of the lower arm. Rotation of the wrist is actually accomplished by a rotation of the radius around the ulna. The radiu...
The different types of vertebrae
The spine extends from the head to the sacrum, and in most people consists of 24 vertebrae. The vertebral column can be divided into three segments:
The anatomy of a vertebra
Each vertebra has several parts. The most important are:
Primate vertebral numbers
Between the skull and the sacrum, humans have 24 vertebrae. Well, most humans, anyway. Sometimes humans have a few more or less.