Sunday, October 25, 2009

Next

Ok so it has been a while. We have had quite a year to say the least. The next thing would be the small long bones. Having said that the ribs are the longest bones in the body, and since we already covered the small chest cavity we will worry about the other bones that are small. Most of the time babies fingers are usually long and dainty right? Well My 2 boys fingers are short and kind of stubby looking. Those are also long bones, same with the toes. Here is some info that I found on long bones.

Long Bones

The long bones are those that are longer than they are wide, and grow primarily by elongation of the diaphysis, with an epiphysis at the ends of the growing bone. The ends of epiphyses are covered with a hyaline cartilage ("articular cartilage"). The longitudinal growth of long bones is a result of endochondral ossification at the epiphyseal plate. Bone growth in length is stimulated by the production of growth hormone (GH), a secretion of the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland.

The long bones include the femurs, tibias, and fibulas of the legs, the humeri, radii, and ulnas of the arms, metacarpals and metatarsals of the hands and feet, and the phalanges of the fingers and toes. The long bones of the human leg comprise nearly half of adult height. The other primary skeletal component of height is the spine and skull.

The outside of the bone consists of a layer of connective tissue called the periosteum. Additionally, the outer shell of the long bone is compact bone, then a deeper layer of cancellous bone (spongy bone) which contains red bone marrow. The interior part of the long bone is the medullary cavity with the inner core of the bone cavity being composed of (in adults) of yellow marrow. They are found more in women.

In the picture you can see that my son is short, well maybe you can't. In this picture he is 9 1/2 years old. He is about a head taller then the chair that is also in the picture. In the other picture is my other son and his cousins. They are all within 3 months of age. The 2 bigger boys are 1 and my son turned 1 less than a month after this picture was taken.