News Author Ann Constantino
Skin in the Game
Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas from Pexels The human skin is a multi-layered organ that covers almost the entire body. The related parts of the so-called integumentary system are the hair, nails and glands producing sweat and oil. The average human’s skin…
This Gland is Your Gland
Photo by Nhia Moua on Unsplash Your body has its own highly specialized and sophisticated chemical manufacturing system. Glands are tissues or mini-organs that produce substances and deliver them locally or systemically to perform a wide range of functions in…
Tour of the Organ Body, Endgame: The Intestines
Photo by Eduardo Goody on Unsplash Finally, we come to the end of the line on our tour of the organ body, the small and large intestine. This is where most nutrients are absorbed from the food we have eaten…
Tour of the Organ Body, Part 5: Love is a Many-Splenic Thing
Photo by RF._.studio from Pexels The spleen is a purplish, 4-5 inch long, roughly fist-shaped abdominal organ, sitting to the left of the stomach, attached to the left kidney by a ligament, and just within the lower-left rib basket. In ancient Greek and…
Tour of the Organ Body, Part 4: The Kidneys
Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on November 9, 2021 A couple of fist-sized, bean-shaped organs tucked behind the stomach just beneath the lower back ribs, the kidneys were considered during biblical times to be…
Tour of the Organ Body, Part 3: Pancreas
Photo by cottonbro from Pexels Posted in the Humboldt Independent on October 26, 2021 When famous ancient Greek physician Galen of Pergamon declared the pancreas nothing more than spongy protective padding separating the stomach from some large blood vessels, no one challenged the…
Tour of the Organ Body, Part 2: The Stomach
Photo by Sander Dalhuisen from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on October 12, 2021. Platypuses and seahorses don’t have one, and if absolutely necessary you could live without one, but mostly it is a good thing to have a stomach, that repository…
Tour of the Organ Body, Part 1: The Liver
Photo by v2osk from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on September 28, 2021. About the size of a football and weighing roughly 3 pounds, your liver has up to 500 vital functions, earning it a dual identity as an organ and a…
Growing a Spine
Photo by Mark Tulin from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on September 14, 2021. Seen from the side, the human spine is a graceful series of curves that evolved when we became bipedal and which enable us to stand buoyantly upright, a…
Be Still My Heart
Photo by hopefilmphoto from Unsplash Published in the Humboldt Independent on August 17, 2021. Dating back to 1733, not long after the invention of the “Physician’s Pulse Watch”, a time device that had a second hand that could be stopped, it has…