anatomy
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Two 'newly discovered' human organs aren't what they seem
For a minute there, 2018 was shaping up to be a year of new-organ discoveries. In January, Dr. J. Calvin Coffey, foundation chair of surgery at the University of Limerick, declared that he had "discovered" a new organ, dubbed the mesentery. Then, in March, fledgling science journal Scientific Reports declared the interstitium, a fluid-filled membrane that surrounds the lungs, digestive tracts and arteries, an organ as well. If verified by the rest of the medical community, these findings could potentially revolutionize our understanding of the human body. There's only one problem with that: These biological structures aren't actually organs.
BioDigital Human - 3D anatomy views on iOS
BioDigital Human (free with in-app purchases) is an astounding 3D map of the human body, all rendered in real time so you can explore, zoom and rotate anatomically correct illustrations. The body can be dissected virtually, and layers can be added or removed. Illustrations can be annotated and shared. The free version has access to more than 1,000 anatomy and health condition models, along with editing tools. You can have any 5 models resident on your iOS device at any one time, and you can manage them by deleting some and replacing them with other models. A premium option is US$4.00 a month, billed annually, which gives you the ability to browse more than 5,000 models, along with tools for authoring and embedding. I can see a great benefit for medical or biology students, and even medical professionals can use this to create impressive displays to share with patients or students. There are other plans that let you explore these models in a web browser on a laptop or desktop computer. The quality of the graphics is very high quality, and on my iPhone 6, rotation is done in real-time and is very smooth. When you step back and think that this is running on an iPhone or iPad and not a high-end workstation, you will be impressed. This app is better experienced than described, so if you are interested download the free version and explore. The iOS app is universal and requires iOS 7 or greater. If you are interested in how the human body works this is the app for you. It is both impressive and educational.
EVE Evolved: Anatomy of a mining op
When EVE Online was first released in 2003, it was designed as a massive universe of competition and conflict between space-faring megacorporations in the distant future. Players bought into the premise completely and soon set about building their own empires and waging wars with neighbours. Corporations ran regular mining operations for resources to build frigates and cruisers for their members, and some of the larger corps co-operatively mined to build the first ever battleships in the game. The mining op has been a staple activity in the game ever since, providing a way for groups to work together on large manufacturing projects or just make some ISK during their down-time. Mining gets a lot of flak for being one of the most boring and least profitable professions in the game, but that's not exactly true. Solo mining can be a great way to spend your downtime while doing other activities, and it ensures that you're online when something exciting happens like a live event, your wormhole system being invaded, or a titan being tackled by your alliance. Co-operative mining ops also offer the social value of bonding with your corpmates when there's nothing else going on. Some players even run dozens of accounts at the same time to turn this ordinarily placid activity into an intensive profit-making activity focused on efficiency and organisation skills. With mining due to make a resurgence in the summer expansion, this edition of EVE Evolved is dedicated to the humble mining operation. I'll take a look at the various options for mining ships, the different haulers available, and the four different areas you can mine in.
3D4Medical's Essential Anatomy now available for OS X
Essential Anatomy has become the most popular medical reference app on the iPad since its launch earlier this year. Now, developer 3D4Medical has brought its newest anatomy software to the Mac. Essential Anatomy for OS X brings all of the features of the iPad version to your MacBook Air, Pro and iMac. Using 3D4Medical's proprietary graphics engine, users can explore seven systems with the most detailed digital anatomy tool ever created for the desktop. Currently the sytems include Skeletal, Connective Tissue, Muscle, Veins, Arteries, Nerves and Respiratory. The app also includes the brain and the heart. In addition, 3D4Medical tells me that a free update will be coming to Essential Anatomy for OS X in the next few weeks that will add other systems, including digestive and urinary. I've written about Essential Anatomy for iPad in the past, and in my tests of Essential Anatomy for OS X, I've found that the Mac version lives up to the quality and experience you'd expect from 3D4Medical. Just as with its iPad app cousin, anyone in the medical or health community should get this app for their Mac. Essential Anatomy for OS X is US$24.99 and available in the Mac App Store. %Gallery-186446%
Essential Anatomy is the future of touch-based anatomy learning
If you've read a lot of my articles over the years you may have picked up that I'm a bit of a human anatomy buff. Yeah, that sounds weird, I know. Some people like understanding their cars and computers better, I like understanding my body. And it's thanks to the iPad that the study of human anatomy has never been easier, or more interactive. There are several nice anatomy apps available for the iPad, but I've been testing one for the last few weeks that makes its predecessors feel as cold and dead as a cadaver. That app is Essential Anatomy by 3D4Medical. I've written about 3D4Medical's apps before. The company was groundbreaking from the start. I even predicted that it was so revolutionary that one of its apps would appear in an Apple commercial. And then it did. However, no matter how good their previous apps were, 3d4Medical's new Essential Anatomy app surpasses them in every way possible. That's because the company spent the last 18 months building a proprietary graphics engine designed specifically for the iPad. The graphics engine enables real-time rendering of the most highly detailed 3D anatomy structures ever seen on a tablet. Using the app on my fourth generation iPad, I'm able to interact with the anatomic structure with zero rendering or lag time. Fading or hiding certain muscles or other structures happens instantaneously. And the details of the structures themselves will blow you away. Besides the new graphics engine and completely new 3D structures, Essential Anatomy offers correct audio pronunciation for every structure in the model, 3D models of most major systems (including muscles, nerves, arteries and veins), an incredibly easy-to-navigate -- yet comprehensive -- UI, and a number of learning features including Latin nomenclature for each anatomic structure, quizzes, the ability to take notes and a number of sharing options. Like their previous apps, Essential Anatomy is an app every doctor, physiotherapist, OT, nurse and medical student should own. I'm also certain it's an app that will soon be required material at medical schools. Using the scalpel tool users can easily remove muscles individually or layer-by-layer and turn on or off arterial, venous and nervous systems. The touch-based navigation and zooming features allow users to see anatomical structures from any angle they want. Make no mistake about it: Essential Anatomy by 3D4Medical is the future of touch-based anatomy learning. The app itself won't be live in the App Store until tomorrow. Until then you can check out the gallery below. Essential Anatomy will cost US$29.99 and is compatible with the iPad 2 or later. It also requires iOS 6 or later. Once it goes live, you'll be able to download it here. %Gallery-178751%
Researchers create spinal cord connectors from human stem cells, heralding breakthrough
It's taken many years and more than a bit of brainpower, but researchers at the University of Central Florida have finally found a way to create neuromuscular connectors between muscle and spinal cord cells, using only stem cells. Led by bioengineer James Hickman, the team pulled off the feat with help from Brown University Professor Emeritus Herman Vandenburgh, who collected muscle stem cell samples from adult volunteers. After close examination, they then discovered that under the right conditions, these samples could be combined with spinal cord cells to form connectors, or neuromuscular junctions, which the brain uses to control the body's muscles. UCF's engineers say the technique, described in the December issue of the journal Biomaterials, marks a major breakthrough for the development of "human-on-a-chip" models -- systems that simulate organ functions and have the potential to drastically accelerate medical research and drug development. These junctions could also pay dividends for research on Lou Gehrig's disease or spinal cord injuries, though it remains unclear whether we can expect to see these benefits anytime soon.
Daily Mac App: Muscle System Pro II
Back in March I raved about 3D 4 Medical's Muscle System Pro II iPad app. It's a photo-realistic 3D atlas of the human body that allows the user to navigate through layers of muscles with the touch of their finger. The app is so good it's found a foothold among must-have apps at medical school across the country. For those of you who work or study in the medical fields, or just have an interest in anatomy, I'm happy to say that 3D 4 Medical has now brought Muscle System Pro II to the Mac. Like its iPad brother, Muscle System Pro II for Mac allows users to look up 433 of the major muscles in the human body. Users can tap on a muscle's pin to get more information about the muscle, such as its origin, insertion, and action. Particularly helpful for students is that the app allows you to insert your own pins into a muscle and make your own notes for each individual muscle. The app also offers an interactive quiz which tests the user's knowledge of muscular anatomy. If you're a fan of the iPad app, be sure to check out the Mac version. The 3D models look absolutely amazing on a 27 inch iMac display and its just nice to be able to access a powerful research and study tool on any device of your choice. Muscle System Pro II for Mac is US$19.99 in the Mac App Store. For users interested in anatomy, 3D 4 Medical has also brought some of their other iPad apps to the Mac platform, including Skeletal System Pro II, Brain Pro, and Heart Pro. %Gallery-138704%
Daily iPad App: Netter's Anatomy Atlas
Any medical student or professional will instantly recognize the name "Netter." Frank H. Netter was a physician and artist who drew over 500 plates, or individual medical illustrations, covering virtually every aspect of human anatomy. Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy, the book, is a classic in the field of medical reference. It outshines Grey's Anatomy, not only in its depth and accuracy, but also because of the detail of the images (not to mention, they're in color). If you're a medical student, Netter's is a must. However, the biggest problem with Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy, as with most medical reference books, is medical students might break their backs carrying the book around. It's a tome that weights close to ten pounds. The extra weight has now been alleviated however, thanks to Elsevier Health Sciences finally bringing Netter's Anatomy to the iPad. Netter's Anatomy Atlas for iPad offers users all the benefits of the book and more. Because it's an app and not an ebook, Netter's Anatomy Atlas offers interactivity that could never be obtained in paper format. You still get all 531 Netter plates, but the app also gives you the ability to bookmark individual plates, add notes to the plates, customize and toggle labels, and offers a search functionality that allows you to quickly find a plate by plate number or keyword. The app also features some cool extras, like an additional 40 Netter plates once you register the app. Though I'm glad Netter's is finally available on the iPad (my copy of the 4th edition is literally falling to pieces), there is one major drawback to Netter's Anatomy Atlas for iPad. In a baffling move, the app only works in landscape view. You can't look at the images in portrait orientation even though that's how they were drawn. This means you're scrolling a lot through some of the taller images. I imagine this landscape-only limitation will be addressed in a future update (at least, I hope it will be). Besides that landscape orientation problem, the rest of the app is solid and I highly recommend it for anyone in the medical field. Like the book, the iPad app isn't cheap. Netter's Anatomy Atlas for iPad costs US$89.99. But there is also a free sample version, Netter's Anatomy Atlas Free, for those of you who want to try out the app first. If you do buy the full app, be warned: because of all the highly detailed plates it takes up a whopping 1.35 GB of space on your iPad. %Gallery-134922%
Muscle Trigger Points app helps you locate sources of pain
Trigger points are taut bands of muscle that send pain to other areas of the body. Oftentimes people with trigger points might suffer pain in one area of the body, like the lower back, and not realize that the pain is actually originating on the other side of the body (the psoas, in this case). The field of trigger point therapy was pioneered by Dr. Janet Travell, personal physician to John F. Kennedy. After Travell's 40-plus years of work, she co-wrote a (very expensive) two-volume, 1600 page book detailing over 700 trigger point locations and their effects on the human body. For those of you who don't want to spend a few hundred dollars on Travell's books, Real Bodywork has made a universal iOS app called Muscle Trigger Points that details trigger points for over 70 muscles and their pain referral patterns. The app itself is an excellent reference guide that lets you search for trigger points by specific muscle, or by pain zones on your body. Best of all, the app is cheap compared to Travell's books. For those of you who are into trigger point therapy, I highly recommend Muscle Trigger Points just for the fact that it provides an interactive reference that you can carry with you on your iPhone or iPad. That being said, the app does have some drawbacks. It doesn't feature all the muscles or trigger points in the human body, and it does leave out some major ones (Extensor hallucis longus, anyone?). The app also doesn't show you how to deactivate your trigger points, though it does talk you through self-treatment in a four-minute audio guide. (For those who want detailed instructions about self-treatment, Claire Davies' respected Trigger Point Therapy Workbook is the best.) Muscle Trigger Points is a universal app, and it's available for US$2.99 on the App Store.
Muscle System Pro II shows the great potential of iPad apps
Mark my words: Muscle System Pro II will one day appear in an iPad commercial. It's that good. This is one of those apps that show you just how powerful the iPad can be. Muscle System Pro II by 3D 4 Medical is an interactive learning tool that allows the user to completely explore the muscular anatomy of the human body. It uses photorealistic 3D models that the user can control in real time. You can strip away muscle layer by layer, rotate around them, view different parts of the body from different angles, and that's just for starters. You can look up 433 of the major muscles in the human body. Rotate any part of the body around to see its anterior, superior, inferior or lateral views. Pinch to zoom in on a specific muscle, and you'll see just how detailed the 3D models are -- you can even see the direction the muscle and fascia fibers are running. When you tap on a muscle's pin (a marker labeling the muscle), a pop-up shows the muscle's name, its origin, insertion, what action it performs, its innervation and its arterial supply. Furthermore, you can add a note to the muscle to record your thoughts or comments about it. Muscle System Pro II isn't cheap at US$39.99, but this isn't your run of the mill app. This is a 3D powerhouse of interactive anatomy that every doctor, chiropractor, nurse practitioner and massage therapist should own, not to mention every medical student or anyone interested in human anatomy. When you use an app like this, it's easy to tell that tablets are not just the future of consumer computing, but of learning and medical reference as well. Check out the video after the break to see Muscle System Pro II in action.
Exploring a 'Cyber Renaissance' in Deus Ex: Human Revolution
When Art Director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête sat down to design the overarching look of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, he had two big criteria for his designs to meet. First, he wanted to choose "illustration over simulation" -- rather than creating something exactly real, he wanted to make a game that had a definite style. And second, he adhered to the theory that "design distinction creates desire" -- if a game (he used Bioshock and Team Fortress 2 as examples) has a distinct art style, it will already start to stand out in players' imaginations. And so, from all of the various genres and settings for the third Deus Ex game, Belletête and the team landed on the phrase "Cyber Renaissance" to describe the look they chose. In a pre-E3 presentation this week, Belletête talked about "Cyber Renaissance," and how it defined the art and architecture of Square Enix's Deus Ex title.
Anatomy of a Fanboy
At the risk of prompting the masses to shout, "Slow news day, huh?", I couldn't help but post this article from Aeropause. From the article:"Ever since man made the very first console there has existed a seedy under-culture of gamers. These gamers have chosen something to stand by forever, and no it's not graphics or the great games; it's the company they stand behind, and why would someone base every decision regarding their gaming future based on a company's past success? The simple answer is fanboyism, a disease that has affected millions! They separate themselves from the good fanboys because they believe that they possess the greatest console on the planet without consideration for the others out there."Of course, none of you fall into that category. We're talking about other fanboys. Seriously, it's just a fun little article that's worth a read. The Nintendo fanboy picture on the bottom left of the article is worth the price of admission* alone.*This is the internet, silly. It's free![Thanks, Dic k]
