{"id":9662,"date":"2015-10-09T08:35:42","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T16:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/?p=9662"},"modified":"2015-10-09T13:44:49","modified_gmt":"2015-10-09T21:44:49","slug":"a-summer-full-of-bones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/2015\/10\/09\/a-summer-full-of-bones\/","title":{"rendered":"A Summer Full of Bones"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"SummerAnatomyCrew\"<\/a>

Laura Macintyre, Jackie Houser, Rachael Cunningham, and Ben Ulrich hold some of the models they constructed this summer.<\/p><\/div>\n

The CVM anatomy lab is chocked full of models, including full-sized llama and horse skeletons, several cow rumen, and, of course, a stuffed beaver in an orange bandana. Many of the models were constructed by students.<\/p>\n

This year, some of the models assigned by Dr. Fikru Nigussie, Associate Professor of anatomy, were a bit different; they required movable parts and paint.<\/p>\n

Dr. Nigussie is creating a display of the limbs of many different animals, so students Ben Ulrich and Laura Macintyre constructed dog, cat and cougar limb skeletons, then painted each bone a different color and labeled it with a number.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarpal and tarsal bones are really complicated and can vary between species,\u201d says Ulrich. \u201cDr. Nigussie wanted a comparative limb display where you can look across the species, and the colors correlate to specific bones. The beetles are still working on horse, cow, sheep and goat limbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beetles?<\/p>\n

Many of the skeletons that students assemble for use in the anatomy lab arrive as loose pieces in a box ordered from a supplier, but the limbs for the new comparative display arrived as meat. Rachael Cunningham took on the task of turning them into clean bones.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe set up a colony of beetles in a wooden box, with a grate at the bottom where the bedding is; that\u2019s where they live and hang out,\u201d she says. \u201cIt seals tightly, and has a filter and fan at one end. Beetles are pretty particular about the temp they live in; you have to keep them cool in the summer, and warm in the winter, in order to keep them alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Cunningham placed a leg in the box, it took about three weeks for the bugs to strip it. \u201cBefore I put the specimens in with the beetles, I would dissect off as much tissue as I could,\u201d says Cunningham. \u201cBut there is still a lot of stuff around the joint, and really close to the bone, that is very difficult to remove. The beetle\u2019s job was to clean up everything I couldn\u2019t get off.\u201d When the beetles are done, the bones come out of the box looking dirty, so Cunningham\u2019s last step was to soak the bones in hydrogen peroxide to make them white.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Once the cat limb bones were ready for Macintyre to assemble, she had to figure out how to attach them. \u201cI read through the assembly manual,\u201d she says \u201cbut I was trying to incorporate the use of magnets. I wanted something that people could take apart for a closer look. Dr. Nigussie knew somebody at the University of Washington who had used magnets, so I called and asked him for advice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Macintyre had to pinpoint exactly where each muscle attaches to the bone and mark it. \u201cI had to go back and review the PowerPoints [from first year anatomy class],\u201d she says. \u201cNone of us had experience doing this, and it was pretty hard. There was a lot of trial and error,\u201d she says. \u201cBut now I have a really solid idea of where everything is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ulrich faced similar challenges on his assignment to build a dog skeleton. \u201cIt came as a box of bones,\u201d he said. \u201cEverything was already articulated, which should have made it easy, but I had to break down a lot of the joints, because Dr. Nigussie wanted half of the body to have movable joints.\u201d Ulrich had to figure that on his own. \u201cThey didn\u2019t give me directions,\u201d he says, \u201cso I had to use trial and error.\u201d He tested out a few ideas; rubber bands definitely didn\u2019t work. \u201cI realized they would dry out and deteriorate, and I needed something that would last.\u201d He ended up in a store that doesn\u2019t normally supply anatomy labs: JoAnn Fabric. \u201cI finally went there and got elastic bands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackie Houser also tackled a full skeleton, a ferret, and her biggest challenge was size. \u201cAll the pieces are really tiny, and my fingers are pretty fat,\u201d she said. \u201cThe little ribs are very fragile and one of them actually broke in half, so I had to repair that before I could glue it to the spine.\u201d She also struggled with getting all those ribs attached perfectly parallel. \u201cThe ribs were the hardest part of the whole skeleton,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m kind of a perfectionist and it still bothers me that the ribs aren\u2019t perfectly laid out.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the students building models this summer needed persistence and problem-solving skills. They also relied on their class notes. \u201cFor some things, especially the dissection, what I started doing didn\u2019t work so well. I found that it helped a lot when I went back and reviewed my anatomy, then changed my strategy based on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ulrich adds: \u201cI finally figured out a good strategy for putting things together on my last project. So if students need advice next summer, I can help.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CVM anatomy lab is chocked full of models, including full-sized llama and horse skeletons, several cow rumen, and, of course, a stuffed beaver in an orange bandana. Many of the models were constructed by students. This year, some of the models assigned by Dr. Fikru Nigussie, Associate Professor of anatomy, were a bit different; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1802,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3054],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty-and-staff"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3DBMX-2vQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1802"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9662"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9673,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9662\/revisions\/9673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofveterinarymedicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}