Oceanshaft

Did some preparation for upcoming experiments at the towing tank, and then it was time for browsing the internet. Today's choice of topic started from budgeriars, went through raptors and falconry, on to penguins and hydrodynamics and finished off with the leatherback turtle. Finally led me to a site which I seem to recall hearing about previously but alas, never took a proper look at. Digital Morphology - which possesses an archive of CT scans of biological specimens.

Brings back memories of biology lessons in secondary school (dissection of a cockroach's mouthparts and also a goat's eye) and JC (where we dissected a rat - this had actually been removed from syllabus at the time, but our bio tutor believed it was a necessary part of our education, hear hear). Of course, for those of you who prefer less indelicate pasttimes, you can take a look at this scan of a tulip. There's also one of a pineapple, but not very much detail in that one. Besides, I'm sure you've torn into a pineapple or two before, right?

Now I'm reminded of the human specimens floating in jars at the NUS medical faculty, which I was privileged to see once. There's something faintly disturbing and yet deeply fascinating about looking at the insides of an organism. It's not exactly the same as preparing a whole fish or chicken for cooking and seeing the insides. Probably because in CT scans and anatomical specimens, everything is put together as is (what's the Latin term that would be appropriate here? like in situ), as if all the parts were still working. We're seeing something that one shouldn't be able to see. That one normally doesn't have the privilege to see. And reminded that we too, have moving parts.

Yes, bio was always very interesting, although I could do without the yeast smell that permeates the labs whenever we all perform Fehling's test. (I sense a wrong use of tense here...)