Microscope Dope

  
Completed the fifth out of the ten biophysic laboratory experiment today.
Me and Paymon tend to start small competitions during the labs and since we were measuring hair thickness this time we wanted to see who got the thickest hair, lol.
My blond Scandinavian hair versus his dark Middle-East hair.
I bet you can guess who won - but only with a few micrometres(!)
Of course Solveig had to enter the game and knocked us both out with her super thick hair, darn.

Last time we were measuring half-thickness of lead and aluminium by registering pulses of radiation sent out by a mega dangerous, neon green cobalt-60 bar (JK). Each measurement was counted from 0 to whatever the random value would end up to be.
Of course we started guessing the value before the device showed us the value and I'm so god damn good - I guessed completely right [the number was 6381] - only one single time thou, but it's still a really lucky shot against the odds(!)

Yawning @ first aid

Mattias and Christian are a 100% super focused during the lesson :D so was I...

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Histology lessons ftw!

Histology lessons with our Histology professor are so much fun. Not just because of the fact that Histology is an awesome subject by itself but rather because our professor is one of the funniest and best teachers at the university.
Today he described the staining and marking methods of antibodies to find specific cells in this way (shortened down to readable length - also, try to imagine this guy making real sound effects and gestures while talking):
"We put growing rabbit with growth hormone on a table an take out the hormone. Then we take a sheep, inject the rabbit hormone into the blood and the sheep goes 'waaaaah what is this?!'.
The sheep produce antibodies against the rabbit and so we take this antibodies from the sheep.
Now we say: go away stupid sheep I don't need you anymore. But no, we only have 0,1ml antibodies! We must have more, remember?
So we take this cow, with the horns you know, no wait... We take an elephant! We inject the sheep antibodies against the rabbit hormone in the elephant and he goes 'waaaaaaaah!' and now we get much antibodies. Now we can take the rabbit, kill it, cut it up and slice the puititory gland, put in the elephant and sheep antobodies and now we see which cells that produce the growth hormone..."

Awesome 15 minute explaining, I bet it was a lot more fun IRL, I laughed hard and learnt a lot! :D

The weeks just get better and better...

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I did well, what a relief

Just came home after a long day, Wednesdays are always busy from 8am until 4pm, and guess what? I did well on the anatomy test.

Our professor divided us into two groups, A and B, and wrote subjects for each group on the black board. The subjects were; scheme of bone blood supply (group A) and scheme of bone ossification and growth (group B). Also, both groups had to do a scheme of the hand.
While we were focused on drawing our schemes our tutor and his assistant went around quizzing us on the bones.
I got the ulna, placed it and told her about its features. When she understood that I knew it she moved on to the humerus, clavicle and finished off with the distinguishing of the carpal bones.
I got an A and went on with my schemes and it wasn't such a big hassle as I'd imagined it to be. Now I know how to study for the test next week.

We handed in the schemes and when I get it back next week I'll post it here for anyone that's interested.

The lesson went on with ligament studies. We took our lab coats on since this was the first time we had seen preserved tissue - which equals chemicals and messy tissue. Each group got a pair of shoulder joints, completely preserved with bone, tissue, ligament and muscle tendons. I'd love to post a descriptive image but since that interfere with ethics I'll Google you something similar instead: how about a link to a shoulder dissection picture?
And yes, before you click, I got to warn sensitive persons.
[Picture 1 - Shoulder Joint] [Picture 2 - Glenohumeral Joint Specified]

The experience of seeing, holding and smelling dissected specimens wasn't as gooey and disgusting as I'd first imagined. Sure the formaldehyde mixture, the preserving fluid, didn't smell like raspberries but I think I'll get used to it. I mean the fish factory back home smell a lot worse.
Having a whole cadaver later on in the dissections with all the tissues intact might be a complete different experience though - but that will have to wait for the time being.

I wish my colleges in the parallel groups good luck for their test tomorrow, hope you'll do great guys!

He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would accomplish much must sacrifice much...

- James Allen (1855-1942)

Fainting in class; |X|check

Today there was lot of drama.

It all went well until the biophysics lecture.

When I walked down the stairs to the lecture hall I remember thinking “gosh the air in here is really bad” and it wouldn’t take long until my presumption would knock me in the head.

I felt a distant unease during the whole lecture, had problems concentrating and the bad air didn’t make things better.

Towards the end I got really bad and started to feel like throwing up. I broke out in a cold sweat and turned to my colleges to my right (four of them) and told them that “I really need to go out”. Obviously my friend to the right, Marketa (who was trying to concentrate on the lecture), I can believe surprisingly found herself encountering nothing but a pale face with bluish lips mumbling some gibberish. What a wreck.

After that it all happened in a matter of seconds: The four people on my row went up and I staggered towards the stairs to get out of there to either get water or more importantly fresh air.

By now my hearing was almost gone and my sight was really blurry and as if that wasn’t enough my legs didn’t want to obey me. I tried hard to get up the stairs but my feet felt like rocks and I collapsed to the staircase. I had my reflexes left though, and was able to counter it. I still made quite a ruckus forcing myself up the stairs and I felt the attention switching from the tutor towards me (if that was the case I don’t know, I just remember the feeling of it).

As I got out in the fresh air it didn’t take long for my senses to get back on track but I was still shaking from the cold sweating. One of my colleges and friends from the row, Thomas, came out to check on me and five minutes after that the others came out as the lecture was finished. I had a chance to tell them what happened. The rest of the day I had a major headache and during the night a bad fever.

The worst part is that I still don’t know what triggered it – the best part is that in a couple of years from now on I’ll most probably have the knowledge to explain it...

Structure through chaos

Today we schooled in for the winter semester.
The truth is that I kind of longed for this day for quite some time now. I was curious to see how the tutors were like and, since we haven’t met them all yet, still are. I began the day with anatomy and was looking forward to have a lesson with Dr. Snajdr, a teacher that already introduced himself at the day of introduction. To my surprise, as well as disappointment, another tutor entered the practice room and introduced himself in rather poor English. My guess is that he is a teacher from the Czech branch of our Faculty and is about to have his first international group of students. Good thing anatomy mostly consists of Latin and Greece and is rather easy to understand as well as study on your own.

By his side stood a younger girl, I guess she’s in the last year or so, and she introduced herself in fluent English which kind of balanced my approach to the whole situation.

Later on they both, regardless the poor English which I got used to really quickly, proved their selves to be great teachers!
The lesson was very well structured and I found the time well worth spent and the whole situation just made me really happy.
At first we went through different axis of the body in order to be able to locate and distinguish different parts. Our first parts of the body to get to know were the parts of the upper limb; upper arm, forearm and shoulders. The teacher and his assistant went brought in a big box filled of bones – authentic bones that is. It was a strange feeling to have five different bones obviously from five different individuals – strange but exciting.

I never thought that one single bone could have so many different parts. Just the five bones in the upper limb (the lower is added next week) contains of approximately 50 parts with different names. I need to force them all into my head over the next week – there’s a test on the next Friday continuing as a weekly routine; almost one test every two weeks. I believe that it’s pretty good to have them; I prefer to have something that triggers one to study rather than to sit with it all right before the final exam.
There will be many late evenings under the feeble reading light and a great many visits at the Anatomy study room (aka. “The Graveyard”) where one can borrow bones to practice at.

The day went on with both Histology and Cytology lectures as well as Biophysics lectures, both of them rather long and boring. Tonight I’ve been going over the upper bones of the limb, trying to sort out all the nomenclature and terminology.

It is tough – but far from impossible...