FGF's

This picture was taken from the following website:
http://unachivablelover.files.wordpress.com/2009/
01/daddy-girl-brunette.jpg?w=325&h=325

This Wednesday, my dad was taking me to school and we were chatting in the car. We started out talking about medical school, but somehow, the conversation trailed off into physical disabilities. There is a pediatric cardiologist who is a friend of the family. He, apparently, has an arm that is shorter than the other. While discussing his difficulties of trying to get into surgery, this also served as a learning experience for my dad. I told him all about the FGF family, from when we were studying cell signaling pathways. I also told him the handicap was probably due to a mutation in this pathway, which causes shortness of limbs (something I remembered from a test). More than anything, it was fun for me to be able to share knowledge with my dad. (Usually, it goes the other way around.) In turn, I think he was proud of how much I had learned (and I'm actually applying) from this class. Also, the social implications of diseases were once again brought to my attention, making me realize how lucky I should be to be considered "normal."

Allantois

This picture was taken from the following website:
http://www.aps.uoguelph.ca/ANSC*2340/LEC3/PS23.gif

I first came across the word "allantois" in class during a lecture in the past two weeks, and the term reappeared during the reading portion of lab this week, so I decided to really find out what it means. The term is defined as "the extraembryonic membrane found in amniotes that forms off the hindgut of the embryo. It stores nitrogenous waste and, in the chick, will eventually fuse with the chorion to form the chorioallantoic membrane. It is vascularized and is formed from the splanchnopleure, a layer made up of endoderm and splanchnic lateral plate mesoderm." Essentially, the allantois is the precursor of the gut in the chick embryo. Above is a picture detailing the allantois in a sheep embryo.

The information above was taken from the following reference: http://labs.devbio.com/protected/resources/modules/LabBook/Tyler_LabManual_Complete_2010.pdf.