A Histology Lesson - Look-Chin Style

I stopped by my cousin's house the other day to drop something off for my mom, and while I was there, I chatted with my aunt as she prepared some look-chin pla for my cousins. Because I am a nerd, I am going to enlighten you all with a brief Histology lesson, look-chin style.

In Thai, look-chin means meat ball. A great variety of said meat balls can be found here in the Land of Smiles, for example:

Look-chin pla = Fish balls
Look-chin moo = No, not cow balls (moooo!), but pork balls
Look-chin neua = Beef balls
Look-chin gai = Chicken balls (Does this mean that guys are chicken? Heh, j/k.)
Look-chin goong = Shrimp balls
Look-chin pla-meuk = Squid balls
Look-chin maa = Dog balls (Hah! Gotcha there, now didn't I? Don't worry, we don't eat dogs here... at least most of us don't.)

Heh, dog balls. Now why does that sound really dirty? =X Anyways, now that I've gotten that look-chin bit all cleared up, let's continue on with our lesson, shall we?


A HISTOLOGY LESSON
Look-Chin Style


EXHIBIT #1: Your normal, ordinary erythrocyte, or red blood cell.
Note the nice biconcave disc shape, which provides a 20-30% greater surface area than a sphere relative to cell volume, thus significantly enhancing gaseous exchange. This shape, along with the fluidity of the plasma membrane, allows the erythrocyte to deform readily, and thus erythrocytes are able to pass through the smallest capillaries.
(Yeah, I had to look that up. My brain isn't sophisticated enough for me to spout fancy medical jargon like that.)


An actual image of a bunch of erythrocytes, bouncing along oh so merrily.



EXHIBIT #2: A sickle cell.
Unlike lucky schmuck Mr. Erythrocyte above, poor l'il sickle cell here is sickle-shaped (duh, that's why it's called a sickle cell).
Because of their shape, they are unable to squeeze through smaller blood vessels. As if life weren't unfair enough already, sickle cells only live to be 60 days long, whereas those erythroyte bastards live up to 120 days! Also, because the body cannot make new red blood cells as fast as it loses sickle blood cells, the result is that sickle-cell patients end up having less blood cells and less hemoglobin than your average person. This can lead to loads of symptoms. If you're interested (though I bet you couldn't care less), you can read more about it here.



An actual image of a sickle cell, lonely amongst a sea of perfect, flawless erythrocytes. How sad.



OK, so why have I suddenly inserted a picture of the once popular (where have they disappeared to? I miss them) R&B group, TLC? Because T-Boz has sickle-cell anemia and is also a spokesperson for the SCDAA. Yay for T-Boz.



EXHIBIT #3: A spherocyte.
I'm too lazy to tell you what spherocytes are all about, but you can read more about it here... if you're interested (but lemme guess again, you couldn't care less?).



Spot the spherocyte!



EXHIBIT #4: And the cutest of 'em all... an astrocyte!
Astrocytes can be found in your CNS and are known for having voracious appetites. Since they're phagocytotic, they basically engulf and gobble up any debris that happens to cross their path. Yeah, they're gluttonous little buggers.


And again, an actual image of an astrocyte.


~*~

OK, so now that you've all expired from boredom, I will end this here and leave you with this very important public message:

Currently Playing: Flowers in the Window by Travis
Currently Reading: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling (Any HP fans out there have probably already heard that the next installment of JK Rowling's fantastic Harry Potter series is going to be titled "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince". Please, please hurry up with book 6, Mrs. R!)