Look – I’m not the smartest person nor the most insightful. I got high one evening and thought to myself, “hold up.. bones grow?”. And yes, I did get a very low mark in biology, but better the curiosity kick in now than never lol – so I apologize for my use of terminology.
I Googled a bit on it and had a hard time wrapping my head around what exactly is in the bones “hard-code” that makes it a main base of biological human foundation. How far have we come to understanding every component that makes it a bone? Guessing that it’s been studied in its entirety already considering medical advancements, but it just seems a little TOO overpowered to me.
Forgive me, I am also just remembering bones aren’t just in humans.
Anyway.
Our biological design startup sequence gives us this base structure (bone) for our anatomy setup, which in my head, I’m comparing to like metal beam supports of a building. And you’re telling me it GROWS? our metal beams have the power to GROW?
What’s been studied and tested when it comes to the material in bones and it’s growth? And have people tried testing the limits of its growth and what have they come up with so far?
I understand there’s defects like bone cancer which can make bones grow very unfavorably inside a living person. So a defect can push a bone to continue growing past it’s norm, but is that the only factor?
I have a lot of bone questions and I thought here would be a great place to start. If anyone could whip up a basic understanding of bones – it’ll help provide a better learning foundation for me to continue down this curious path.
Thank you!
In: Biology
In addition to starting as cartilage and growing from growth plates as others have said, bones are alive and are constantly being broken down and reformed. There are specific cells whose job it is to break down bits of bone and to reform bone: osteoclasts and osteoblasts. When you break a bone it heals, it doesn’t just stay broken!
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