The Skeletel System
Author: Jack
From: Mississauga, Canada
Age: 10
Date: 9th Nov 1998, 1:44 AM
Rating: 5
Comment:
Title: The Skeletel System
THE SKELETAL SYSTEM
How do you walk? You walk because you have bones inside of you. All these bones together are called the skeleton. The skeleton is stiff supportive framework of the body. When you where born, your skeleton had around 350 bones. By the time you become an adult, you will only have only 206 bones in your bones in your body. This is because as you grow some bones will fuse together to form one bone. Our bones don’t work together, they form joints. At the end of each bone there is a substance called cartilage. Cartilage is formed so bones move together without any pain. In addition to all this the skeleton protects the brain, spinal cord, heart and the lungs. It also provides places for the muscles to attach at.
The SELETON has three major jobs…
1.It protects vital organs such as the brain, the heart and the lungs.
2.It gives us the shape we have. Without our SKELETON we would just be a blob of blood and tissue on the floor.
3.It allows us to move. Because our muscles are attached to our bones, when our muscles move, they move the bones, and so we move.
The Hand
The hand contains a total of 27 bones and is the most flexible part of the human skeleton. Like other higher primates, humans possess nails instead of claws and have a thumb that can be rotated to oppose the other digits, enabling them to manipulate objects delicately and precisely. Higher primates other than humans, however, also use hands for locomotion; the development of an upright posture and consequent use of the hands for manipulation alone probably took place concurrently with the increase in brain size in humans.
The Foot
The human foot differs from the feet of other primates in that it is used solely for locomotion, so that the big toe is no longer opposable to the other digits as it is in the great apes. Instead the bones of the feet have evolved in a way that enables humans to stride, and toes other than the big toe begin to show signs of degeneration. The heel bone bears most of the weight of the body and helps to form the longitudinal arch of the foot, along with the transverse arch formed by the metatarsal bones
The Pelvis
The pelvis, a cup-shaped structure of bone, distributes the weight it receives from the upper body to the legs, forms the basis for many muscle attachments, and supports the organs of the lower abdomen. The pelvis in the HUMAN BODY consists of two hipbones that form the lateral and front walls. Each hipbone is composed of the fusion of the ileum, schism, and pubic bones termed inanimate bone. The inanimate bones are held together at the lowermost region by the pubic symphysis, a joint. The posterior wall of the hipbone is fused to the sacrum, coccyx (tailbone), and fifth lumbar vertebra of the spine. A moist membrane called the peritoneum lines the pelvic cavity, like the abdomen. Found within the cavity are the urinary bladder, sigmoid colon, and rectum. In females, the reproductive organs are also found there. The pelvis is wider, not as deep, and lighter in structure in women than in men, and thus has a greater capacity. The opening between the inanimate bones in females is nearly oval. A
Joints
Joints are places where to bones have joined together to form one bone. At the end of each bone there is a substance called cartilage. Cartilage is at the end of each bone so the bones move freely without any pain. Some joints like those in your skull, do not move. Other joints like those in your hands and feet do move. You need joints so that two bones can work together and make a part of the body move.
The Muscles
Muscle is contractile tissue that affects the movement of your body. There are 2 types of muscle striated and skeletal. Normally organs are covered with smooth muscle. Cardiac muscle is only found in the heart. Contraction, thought to be a similar process in all types of muscles, involves the proteins actin and myosin and their arrangement within the muscle tissue
The Brain
The brain is one of the most important things the skeleton protects. Basically the brain controls your movement, your behavior and anything else you can think of. It functions by receiving information via nerve cells (neurons) from every part of the body, evaluating the data, and then sending directives to muscles and glands or simply storing the information. Information, in the form of electrochemical signals, moves through complex brain circuits, which are networks of the millions of nerve cells in the nervous system.
The Spinal Cord
The spinal cord carries sensory impulses from the trunk and limbs to the brain; it returns commands from the brain to the muscles and the glands. Anatomically, the spinal cord is housed within the spinal column, a bony column that also forms the main structural support of the skeleton. The spinal column consists of vertebrae linked by joints, ligaments and cartilage.
The Heart
The heart is really a muscle that pumps blood all over the body. Your heart is about the size of your fist. It lies in the center of the stomach, slightly to the left. The heart is divided into two cavities by a wall of muscle; each cavity is divided into two chambers, the upper ones called atria, the lower ones ventricle.
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