Happy Valentines Day

Lymphocyte; Electron Microscope

Some people dont have enough lymphocytes. For example, HIV patients have very few T cells (these are a type of lymphocyte, or white blood cell.) Without these T cells, HIV infected patients are unable to defend themselves against infections that healthy people are unfazed by. The slide above is a white blood cell smear with a lymphocyte smack dab in the middle. It came from the woman embalmed on the pendant below. The pendant is pretty poorly made and some jeweler probably threw it together for a couple of bucks and then sold it to some hipster at an outrageous mark up. I doubt, however, that it was even crappy enough for the hipster. I imagine to "improve it" (so she could claim to her friends it was "vintage"), she hung it from her window and let it rust up in the rain. It is all rather a sad story because the woman (from whom the blood cells above came from and whose face is embalmed on this pendant now owned by a hipster) now looks rather distorted, hole-chested, and horse-like. If you met her in real life, however, you would surely say to yourself "what a beautiful lady.... its too bad really that she smokes so heavily!"... or something to that effect. 

Brain Sand. H&E

This is a stain of corpora arenacea, otherwise known as brain sand. Brain sand is basically extracellular calcified bodies containing calcium phosphate, magnesium phosphate and carbonate in an organic matrix. Sounds like a lot of BS to me. We have sand.... in our brains? You might as well tell me there are ghosts in my attic! 

Rugae in the GI tract; Electron Microscope: no stain.

This slide above contains rugae from the GI tract. Rugae are basically folds that allow the stomach to expand and increase surface area with no change in pressure. This increases absorption. I do not know nor do I care if dinos* have rugae, but i think it is pretty awesome that dinos* line the inside of our GI tract. And who said there was no evidence of evolution?

*I used the abbreviated form of the extinct animal because I couldn't even spell the animal correctly enough for this program to autocorrect me.
** I took a little creative license on this photograph. Obviously this dino is climbing a steep rockface (with small high elevation shrubs scattered about), but rocks turn out to be very difficult to draw, so I put this dino in a cave. Apologies if it bothers any of you.

Lipids; H&E

The alien got a little aggressive with his crop circles. He is really gonna freak out the farmers and the idiots who believe in aliens when they wake up in the morning. 

Axons

And just when you thought this blog was getting good, I drew some worms in a traffic jam. Ha. The axons in the slide above are myelinated, which basically means they transmit impulses faster. This is really funny because worms in traffic jams move much more slowly than usual. 

Cardiac Muscle; Electron Microscope (No Stain)

Ok so I know this looks like the Midwest (farmland, small ponds, etc) but it is supposed to be much more exotic. Think of the farmland as ripples in a sea of sand dunes and the ponds as merely mirages of wondrous oases. Yes, I KNOW, in reality, this is a slide of cardiac muscle and all of the associated proteins for contraction (myosin, actin, Tropomyosin, Z lines, Intercalated Disks, A bands, H bands, M lines... etc etc etc) but I prefer to look at it and see the view from an airplane window over Tunisia. Spring Break in Tunisia?

Vena Cava Reservoir; H&E

And now, in honor of Downton Abbey (because really, who actually watches the superbowl anyway?) I present you with a woman in a big hat on a Sunday stroll. Unlike most woman her age who have varicose veins (when the things in the slide above are prominent and ugly), she has varicose freckles. It is rather unfortunate for a woman as graceful as she.

Superbowl Spoilers

A page from the Giant's playbook. Looking good. Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good.

Pericyte; Stain(?)

Pericytes are located outside the endothelium. They help capillaries & venules contract to move blood along. You would need a lot of pericytes to move a bison as big and angry and stubborn as this one along. This bison is very mean. I suspect it is because people have been cutting out bits of him for their gourmet organic grass-fed bison burgers (yum!) with no regard for his comfort or happiness. Fifteen burgers from now, this bison will be nothing. Like the Wicked Witch of the West who left behind only her shoes, this Bison will leave behind only his hair and antlers in a heap on the ground. His only chance for escape is to learn to run like this (below). It is a much faster and more efficient way to get around than pericytes for sure.

 

Fibrous Cartilage; H&E

These frogs are obviously very sad that their poor friends' legs got chopped off. What idiot, these frogs wonder, would chop off frog legs and not eat them? Waste not want not, my grandmother would say to him. Perhaps the idiot tried them, found them a bit chewy and cartilaginous, and spit them out. It is possible. If you are curious to know what cartilaginous frog legs would look like stained with H&E under a light microscope, I anticipated this and put the slide above. This cartilage is fibrous and contains type I collegen. It is vascular (again, bloody frog legs=yuck) and a row of chondrocytes (cells that lay down cartilage) are stained blue. 

More Bones....H&E

Do mice have bones? I don't know. Small ones if anything. This mouse does, however, have rollerblades and chickenpox. I am not sure if I should feel bad for it or intensely jealous. I used to love those birthday parties at roller rinks. I always won the limbo game and got golden coins to spend at the arcade games where I fared much more poorly. 

Elastic fibers made from chondroblasts and chondrocytes (Cartilage)

Atlas looks rather uncomfortable. Perhaps it is because the world he is holding is flat and the weight is spread less evenly across his shoulders--or on his mind (the weight of such a fallacy)? My atlas also seems to be chinless. As a barely passing first year medical student, I can say with absolute confidence that I have no idea what anatomical phenomenon this is due to. The collapse of the sternocleidomastoid muscle in the neck perhaps? Instead, I attribute this to years of serious work by me and not enough time using the fun tools (like the spray-painter!) in the computer 'paint' program. 

Muscular Vein, Muscular Artery, Nerve, Arteriole; stain?

I can remember 6 obsessions I had as a kid. Card houses, magic tricks, rollerblading, film-making, juggling (soccer balls), and yoyo-ing. I was really only ever good at magic tricks and juggling (see: my recent card house fiasco on Survivor). I did, however, have big dreams to be a professional yoyo-ist. I am not sure what that even is, but I guess had youtube been around those days it would have meant at least a couple hundred thousand views on my best video. The only tricks I ever really mastered were sleeping (is that even considered a trick if you do it with one of those narcoleptic yoyos?) and the one that looked like a swing. Anyways, I was never as adept as this woman above is. She seems also to be able to shake her booty and yoyo at the same time. What an act. What a stupid show off. The slide above is a cross section of a few different types of arteries, veins, and nerves. It really is a beautiful and organized slide. Probably came from this show off woman. Ooo look at me! Yea, we all are.