Art & science

Biology is....

...beautiful.

Gas laws

I think that when people consider how the body works, they assume that the laws and principles that determine physiologic processes are somehow "special". The fact is that we are made of the commonest elements--carbon, iron, hydrogen, oxygen--and utilize the basic laws of physics. For example, our breathing, which is the process by which we obtain that most essential of all elements, oxygen--utilizes the same gas laws that are used in ballooning! It's not "magic", it's simply adaptation to natural laws. If it weren't, we'd have died out long ago. Consider the gas laws today, and be grateful to Boyle and Dalton and Henry and Hooke and all those guys who figured them out! It wasn't until long after balloons were the rage in Europe that we learned how the gas laws that result in their graceful flying make us who we are as well.

Electricity

...exactly the same as comes out of the socket (flowing electrons).
Except it is generated by the cell (the green "flashes" in the picture).
As it does with all its parts and pieces and processes, the human body uses the same physics (laws of matter and energy) as does the rest of the universe. It converts chemical energy into electrical energy into kinetic energy. And back again!
In fact, the human brain can be hooked up so as to power a light bulb! Those cartoons with the light bubs going off above heads are actually true!
This gives a totally new meaning to "having a healthy glow"!

Appreciate your breathing today!

Spirometer

Making do....

...with what you've got.
Evolution has to start with what has gone before--it can't "back up".

Much of our body is, if analyzed critically, really not very well "designed": the larynx is too small for its critical role in getting oxygen to the lungs; the coronary arteries are too narrow and few for their essential role in getting blood to heart muscle; our backs are too stiff and angled improperly for walking upright; our heads are too big; sinuses are laughable structures over all.
One feature that is an excellent example of "making do" is the synovial joint. Padded and packed and layered, filled with fluid, it still is incredibly vulnerable to environmental injury. But it's better than "bone grinding on bone"--but only just!
It's a good thing we have a large and fantastically plastic brain, which seems to have taken all the true creativity in its development--we need it to overcome our innumerable deficiencies!

The ultimate elixer of life!

I can fly?

I think the most commonly wished for "superpower" is the ability to fly.
That would in fact be too cool.
Whenever we picture people (or dragons, for that matter) with wings these are always IN ADDITION to our four limbs. Given the fact that wings in our branch of the evolutionary tree are the same genotypically as arms or forelegs, this is truly fantasy. Flight has evolved independently several times (insects, bats, and birds all got their wings under different circumstances), but it's a little late in the game for us to grow a third set of appendages.
That being said, wings are lovely! But they are still, for bad or good, IN PLACE OF arms.
On balance I'd rather have the latter.
Consider this the next time you dream of flying!

Anti-

-body!

Beautiful!

It came from...

...inner space!!

Here we see a macrophage (known as a monocyte when it is circulating in the bloodstream) "lasso-ing" pathogens.
Of all the fantastic attributes of the human organism, surely the immune system is the most elegantly onderful. Complex yet logical, layered and exquisitely specific, it has kept us ahead of the many parasites that view us as a tasty way to get their nutrients, a fine place to raise a family, and a legacy to pass on to their progeny.
Unfortunately it, like strange things everywhere, has been misunderstood, misrepresented, and lied about by pseudoscientifically literate people with willfully blunt and stupid axes to grind. This means you, anti-vaccine nuts! This means you, "allergy" gurus! This means you, antioxidant fanatics!
The only weapon against ignorance is knowledge--learn about your immune system today!