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Excerpted from Muscle, The Gripping Story of Strength and Movement, Chapter One, Discovery and Description

While interest in and knowledge of anatomy increased steadily during the Renaissance, differentiating and naming the newly observed muscles proceeded with fits and starts. Andreas Vesalius, in his landmark anatomy tome of 1543, tended to number them. In addition to naming two jaw muscles and the six-pack, he also named an arm muscle the anterior cubitum flectentium musculus[NG1] —though it seems, in this case, a nice succinct number would have been more user-friendly. Had all the muscles retained numbers, however, it could get cumbersome if somebody asked you to flex your number 489 and you couldn’t remember which one it was, out of the roughly 650 that humans have.

Fortunately, anatomists after Vesalius pitched in and gave the muscles descriptive names and renamed the anterior cubitum flectentium musculus the biceps. That’s part of the good news. The bad news is that because Latin was the language of science at the time, some of the names may seem foreign to those of us whose Latin skills are languishing. The other part of the good news is that with a uniform Latin terminology, anatomists and health-care providers around the world could and continue to communicate clearly with one another; and with a bit of linguistic dissection, the names are not all that foreign.

Some of the original names were outright poetic. Consider, for instance, the contributions of Jan Jesenius (1566–1621), a Bohemian physician, politician, and philosopher. He named the muscles controlling the eyeball’s movement amatorius (muscle of lovers), superbus (proud muscle), bibitorius (muscle of drinkers), indignatorius (muscle of anger), and humilis (muscle of lowliness). Twenty years later Jesenius was executed, but it was his political allegiance rather than his muscle naming that got him in trouble. It is too bad that in 1895 anatomists standardized the nomenclature and dully renamed the eye muscles according to their location (superior, inferior, medial, lateral) and alignment (rectus [straight] and oblique). In fact, contraction of the medial rectus muscles would make one cross-eyed, so maybe the Terminology Committee should have left them as the muscle of drinkers (bibitorius).

Most names are straightforward and need only a smattering of Latin to understand. For instance, some muscles received names according to their location, such as the subclavius (under the clavicle) and the intercostales externi (external layer, between the ribs). Others are named by the number of their parts: Bi- means two, and the biceps has two origins, one from the shoulder blade, one from the upper arm bone. The triceps has three origins, and the quadriceps has . . . well, guess.

Muscle, The Gripping Story of Strength and Movement, launches July 25, 2023. Order now.

An entertaining illustrated deep dive into muscle, from the discovery of human anatomy to the latest science of strength training. Read more…

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Read excerpt from Chapter One, Discovery and Description: Muscle Monikers

Pronghorn are the fastest North American land mammals. They first won this accolade more than 10,000 years ago when their ancestors successfully eluded cheetahs, long-legged hyenas, and huge bears, thought to be far swifter than modern varieties. All those ancient predators died off, perhaps because they could no longer have pronghorn for dinner. Today pronghorn remain a marvel of adaptations that equip them for speed across the Great Plains and western mountains from southern Canada to northern Mexico.  

John J. Audubon described their locomotion this way:

The walk is a slow and somewhat pompous gait, their trot elegant and graceful, and their gallop or “run” light and inconceivably swift; they pass along, up and down hills, or along the level plain with the same apparent ease, while so rapidly do their legs perform their graceful  movements  in  propelling  their  bodies  over  the ground, that like the spokes of a fast turning wheel we can  hardly  see  them,  but  instead,  observe  a  gauzy  or film-like appearance where they should be visible. 

Yes, modern cheetahs are the fastest land mammals on earth, topping out at about 70 miles per hour, but only for a few seconds and several hundred yards. Greyhounds also are fleet of foot, but they tire quickly as well. Pronghorn can sprint almost as fast, but they can also maintain a 45-mph pace for miles. At the end they appear not to be particularly winded as they look back with their keen eyesight and likely laugh at whatever perceived danger startled them. Compared to other hoofed creatures, their windpipes, hearts, and lungs are oversized—all which endow pronghorn with “horsepower.” Some enterprising investigators proved this by persuading two pronghorn, which had been raised in captivity, to wear face masks and measured their oxygen consumption while they ran on a treadmill. (I would have loved to see that spectacle.)  The researchers showed that the pronghorns’ oxygen-delivery capacity was three times that of other animals of similar weight.

The combination of a large “carburetor” and “engine” and equally important adaptations in its “suspension system” and “wheels” results in an unparalleled speed machine. Of course, the “suspension system” and “wheels” are really this speedster’s arrangement of bones, muscles, and ligaments.

At about 110 pounds, a pronghorn’s is mostly torso. Imagine a thin head and neck sticking out of a steamer trunk that is supported on broomsticks. Its muscular shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees (stifle joints to veterinarians) appear to be part of its torso with only long, spindly legs visible beneath. These energy-efficient limbs can move quickly, just as the speed and ease of repeatedly swinging a broomstick greatly exceed the facility of swinging a bulgy baseball bat.

Three features make these long levers even more effective. Pronghorn lack collar bones, which adds to their forelimbs’ mobility in the direction of running. This increases both the tempo and length of their stride.

As with horses, a pronghorn’s metacarpals and metatarsals are reduced to two, which are fused together. They are called cannon bones (described in a previous post), and in pronghorn they are nine inches long and remarkably thin.

Thirdly, a strong ligament, the appropriately named springing ligament, attaches each cannon bone to its corresponding toe bone. The ligament stretches when the speedster puts weight on its hoof (toes), and it then snaps back like a rubber band to add stored energy to the power of the stride. And stride it does. A pronghorn can travel as far as 29 feet each time its hooves touch the ground; and at a pace of three strides per second, it runs a hundred yards in just over three seconds, about three times faster than Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest human.

The pronhorn’s anatomical features that favor speed do not, however, make them good jumpers. Whereas a deer can soar over a seven-foot-tall fence with ease and soften their landing on their forelegs, pronghorn look for a way under even a four-foot-tall barrier. When they do jump, even over a small gulley, they tend to land on their hind legs, which one observer described as “goofy-looking” maneuver. It would, however, spare their spindly front cannon bones from breaking.

Here is one final conversation point when you find yourself among bone, muscle, and ligament lovers. Antlers, found on deer, moose, and caribou, for instance, are made of bone and are shed every year. Horns, possessed by mountain sheep and rhinos, for example, are bony extensions of their skulls; they are sheathed in keratin (the same protein that constitutes hair and fingernails) and are permanent. Pronghorn are unique in that the keratin sheaths on their horns are shed annually.    

MUSCLE will be perfect, the publisher has delayed its launch to July 25 to make it so.

pre-order now from WW Norton or from

• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• Books-a-Million
• Bookshop
• Hudson
• IndieBound
• Walmart

In this lively, lucid book, orthopedic surgeon Roy A. Meals takes us on a wide-ranging journey through anatomy, biology, history, and health to unlock the mysteries of our muscles. He breaks down the three different types of muscle—smooth, skeletal, and cardiac—and explores major advancements in medicine and fitness, including cutting-edge gene-editing research and the science behind popular muscle conditioning strategies. Along the way, he offers insight into the changing aesthetic and cultural conception of muscle, from Michelangelo’s David to present-day bodybuilders, and shares fascinating examples of strange muscular maladies and their treatment. Brimming with fun facts and infectious enthusiasm, Muscle sheds light on the astonishing, essential tissue that moves us through life.

Imagine that you are a tyrannosaur rumbling around 76 million years ago in what is now Montana. As fearsome as you are, you are in mortal danger from a low-slung herbivore half your size and weight, even though you may have one for dinner now and then. The rub is that Zuul crurivastator had a tail to kill for, or rather, to kill with. Zuul’s tail was nine feet long with a club at its terminus the size of a 3-inch-thick cafeteria tray. The knob enclosed two large, heavy osteoderms, which are bony plates in the skin seen today in armadillos, crocodiles, and Gila monsters, but with much smaller dimensions. Many dinosaurs possessed osteoderm armor, but tail clubs were unusual. If Zuul flailed its tail and hit your shin bone (remember, you are a Gorgosaurus or other tyrannosaur of the time*), it could render you much less tyrannical, perhaps fatally cripple you. And the fossil record does include various tyrannosaur skeletons with such injuries. Not coincidentally, “crurivastator” means “destroyer of shins.”

Well, the described scenario has been circulating for years and might be of interest for a Jurassic Park sequel, but evidence now suggests that it is wrong. A recent report opines that Zuul wagged its tail violently not to ward off predators but rather to fight over mates, similar to the way modern-day bison and mountain goats butt heads–not to the death, but to establish preeminence. So, you may ask, what is the evidence for a Zuul mating ritual? Intriguing to say the least.

In 2014, paleontologists were using a Bobcat frontend loader to rapidly remove a 39-foot “overburden” of stone sediment to expose the geologic layer that they were interested in exploring. The machine unexpectedly scraped across the surface of a Zuul’s tail club. Because the animal’s fossilized skeleton had not been exposed to erosive forces since it was originally covered with silt 76 million years ago, it was in pristine condition—99% complete including tail and trunk osteoderms in their original positions along with some skin and non-bony keratin scales and sheaths of the creature’s many spikes. (Keratin is the protein that constitutes nails and hair and covers bird beaks and cow horns.) Since keratin and skin are not normally preserved in the fossil record, this Zuul was deemed a “dinosaur mummy.” The Royal Ontario Museum purchased the two 15-ton blocks of stone that encased Zuul and then spent years with magnifying lenses, micro jackhammers, and paint brushes tediously extricating Zuul from its stone tomb, as highlighted in this three-minute descriptive video.

Osteoderms on the beast’s flanks were of particular interest because they showed signs of fracture, whereas signs of similar injuries to osteoderms on the rest of the body were uncommon. The injuries were not inflicted by piercing teeth or slashing claws rendered by a tyrannosaur, rather they resulted from blunt, heavy blows. Furthermore, the damaged osteoderms showed differing degrees of healing, implying that the insults were sublethal and recurrent, perhaps even ritual. Paleontologists have yet to determine the sex of any dinosaur, so you are free to speculate whether these osteoderm-damaging encounters involved competing Zuul females or males.

OK, it’s time to stop envisioning yourself as a tyrannosaur. Rather imagine the myriad yet-to-be-discovered fossils, which will reveal prehistoric animals’ anatomy and also maybe their behavior. Thank you, bone.

*The best-known species of tyrannosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex, did not live at the same time as Zuul, but rather 8-10 million years later.

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Launching June 13, 2023

pre-order now from the publisher, WW Norton, or from

• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• Books-a-Million
• Bookshop
• Hudson
• IndieBound
• Walmart

An entertaining illustrated deep dive into muscle, from the discovery of human anatomy to the latest science of strength training.

Muscle tissue powers every heartbeat, blink, jog, jump, and goosebump. It is the force behind the most critical bodily functions, including digestion and childbirth, as well as extreme feats of athleticism. We can mold our muscles with exercise and observe the results.

In this lively, lucid book, orthopedic surgeon Roy A. Meals takes us on a wide-ranging journey through anatomy, biology, history, and health to unlock the mysteries of our muscles. He breaks down the three different types of muscle―smooth, skeletal, and cardiac―and explores major advancements in medicine and fitness, including cutting-edge gene-editing research and the science behind popular muscle conditioning strategies. Along the way, he offers insight into the changing aesthetic and cultural conception of muscle, from Michelangelo’s David to present-day bodybuilders, and shares fascinating examples of strange muscular maladies and their treatment. Brimming with fun facts and infectious enthusiasm, Muscle sheds light on the astonishing, essential tissue that moves us through life.

Should travelers find themselves in unfamiliar surroundings when it is time to eat, a restaurant’s signage often signals its featured cuisine. For instance, Waffle House, International House of Pancakes, California Pizza Kitchen, Steak n’ Shake, Taco Bell, and Red Lobster aren’t keeping any secrets.

Yet it is hard if not impossible to ascertain the featured fare of other eateries, especially high-end ones. A listing of the world’s 50 best restaurants includes only one, Casa do Porco in Sao Paulo, House of the Pig in Portuguese (ranked #5), that hints at its menu. Some of the top restaurants have names that seem meaningless. These include Diverxo (#4, Madrid), The Jane (#21, Antwerp), and Sorn (#39, Bangkok). When translated, others have names that have meaning, but their relationship with food is murky. Take, for instance, Pujol (Small Hill, #5, Mexico City), Septime (a position in fencing, #22, Paris), and Belcanto (A Beautiful Song, #46, Lisbon). Then there are ones that worry me. I can only hope that their names have nothing to do with what they serve. Otherwise, what might you expect to find on your plate at Geranium (#1, Copenhagen), Nobelhart and Schmutzig (#17, Berlin), or The Chairman (#24, Hong Kong)?

You are probably asking yourself, “What’s the point of this discourse in a blog supposedly focused on muscle and bone?” Well, every non-vegetarian restaurant serves muscle, but I challenge you to find one that has muscle in its name. (Bertha’s Mussels in Baltimore gets close. Even so, it recently closed.) Bones are another matter. A quick google search turned up more than 50 U.S. eateries with bones in their names, but they rarely if ever serve bones. (Maybe that’s why none are listed in the international top 50.)

Smokey Bones is a chain of about 60 establishments in 16 Eastern states, otherwise, bone-related restaurants seem to be one-offs. They are scattered widely and have names such as Shell and Bones (New Haven), Bourbon and Bones (Scottsdale), Fish Bones Grill (Lewiston), Chicken Bones (Baltimore), Dirty Bones (Dallas), and Rice and Bones (Berkeley). But really, are these establishments luring you in for a savory platter of marrow bones and a steaming cup of bone broth*? Aren’t they really saying that you should come have some meat, perhaps still on the bone? Yet nobody is straightforward and calls their eatery Meat or Flesh or Muscle. It seems that bones in the name is just thinly veiled code for we-specialize-in-serving-animal-derived-protein. Perhaps the subtlety is designed to mollify vegetarians.

After stewing over this possibility, I decided it would be safer and more palatable to sample a bones-named restaurant rather than one dishing out pujols, chairmen, or schmutzig. I chose Bones in Atlanta. It has been an institution since opening in 1979. Its website unabashedly states, “Bones has received the Best of Atlanta Steakhouse Award each year for the past sixteen years. Recently, Zagat recognized Bones as having the highest rating for food and service of any steakhouse in America.”

Their lunch menu includes Bones Lobster Bisque, Bones Burger, and BLT with Bones Bacon. I am guessing that these dishes do not have bones in them but are just some of their signature plates. The same goes for dinner. Their Bones Seafood Platter is offered along with an array of steaks, chops, and seafood. It appears, however, that the only time diners can actually have a bone brought to their table is when they order a “bone-in” filet or rib-eye.

So as a bone lover, I was disappointed about the disconnect between Bones’ name and its fare, but I was fully pleased with the ambient setting, good service, and great food. I agreed with this Zagat reviewer. “Bring a big appetite…to this ridiculously decadent power steakhouse that beats those national chains hands down.” I had scallops because they fit my cholesterol and monetary budgets better than their land-derived meat options, bone in or out. On leaving, I received a box of faux bones to gnaw on at bedtime.

To my reckoning, the only restaurant that has a legitimate claim to its osseous name is Hueso (bone in Spanish) in Guadalajara. There, 10,000 bleached bones adorn the walls. Regardless of what Hueso serves, I can’t wait to visit.

* See the previous post relating to eating bone: Bone Broth, My Quest for the Best.

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Launching June 13, 2023

pre-order now from the publisher or from

• Amazon
• Apple Books
• Barnes and Noble
• Books-a-Million
• Bookshop
• Hudson
• IndieBound
• Target
• Walmart

An entertaining illustrated deep dive into muscle, from the discovery of human anatomy to the latest science of strength training.

Muscle tissue powers every heartbeat, blink, jog, jump, and goosebump. It is the force behind the most critical bodily functions, including digestion and childbirth, as well as extreme feats of athleticism. We can mold our muscles with exercise and observe the results.

In this lively, lucid book, orthopedic surgeon Roy A. Meals takes us on a wide-ranging journey through anatomy, biology, history, and health to unlock the mysteries of our muscles. He breaks down the three different types of muscle―smooth, skeletal, and cardiac―and explores major advancements in medicine and fitness, including cutting-edge gene-editing research and the science behind popular muscle conditioning strategies. Along the way, he offers insight into the changing aesthetic and cultural conception of muscle, from Michelangelo’s David to present-day bodybuilders, and shares fascinating examples of strange muscular maladies and their treatment. Brimming with fun facts and infectious enthusiasm, Muscle sheds light on the astonishing, essential tissue that moves us through life. 90 illustrations

Despite my unwavering respect for bone because of its durability and hardness, I must admit that teeth are equally durable and even harder. The tooth’s enamel is the hardest substance in the body and consists almost entirely of the same calcium crystal that constitutes bone. Enamel, however, has none of the collagen meshwork that give bones a bit of resiliency when suddenly stressed, so teeth are far more brittle.

Bones come in vastly more shapes and sizes than teeth and have the same collagen/calcium composition through and through. By contrast, teeth have multiple layers of differing compositions and attributes.  Supporting the crown and extending to the tips of the roots, the dentin is softer and more porous than the enamel. Dentin surrounds the pulp, where a tooth’s blood vessels and nerves reside and where endodontists make their living performing root canals. Covering the dentin below the gum line is a thin layer of cementum, which is softer than both enamel and dentin. Its principal function is to support what dentists blithely call the PDL—periodontal ligament. I object to this name, because bone lovers know that ligaments span from bone to bone across joints, stabilize them, allow motion in some directions, and prevent motion in others. When I posed this flagrant misuse of the term ligament to my dentist, he lamely responded that the PDL spans from bone to tooth and stabilizes the roots in their sockets. For the most part, however, motion between tooth and bone is undesirable, so I think the PDL, which is about as thick as several sheets of paper, should be called the periodontal membrane or covering. Yet my opinion is apparently not shared with those who love teeth more than bones. (In the US alone, dentists outnumber me nearly 200,000 to one.)

Regardless of what it is called, the PDL is responsible for this essay’s title, because if teeth and bones become engaged in a shoving match, teeth win. This is because pressure on a tooth causes specialized bone-dissolving cells in the areas where the PDL is being compressed to remove bone and let the tooth move along. In its wake, specialized bone-forming cells fill the void. Voila, orthodontics is born.  

Humans have been relying on the PDL to perform this bone-defying feat as far back as ancient Egypt, where mummies have been discovered with metal bands wrapped around their teeth. Archaeologists surmise that long-gone fibrous strands tied the bands together to create tooth movement and beautiful toothy grins. Primitive orthodontic appliances also appear among ancient Greek and Roman artefacts.

A major advance came in the 18^th century, when Pierre Fauchard, known as the Father of Modern Orthodontia, began wiring arched metal strips to the teeth to get them moving. To achieve an even greater mechanical advantage, an 1822 invention enhanced the shoving match with external headgear, although it probably did not enhance the user’s social standing while movement was underway. An 1840 book, The Dental Art, described soldering knobs on the metal arches to which rubber bands could be attached and that greatly reduced the need for external headgear. Now, many orthodontic appliances are nearly invisible.

In addition, tooth movement can be accelerated by drilling small holes into the bone surrounding the target teeth. This weakens the bone and stimulates activity in the bone-dissolving cells. Enterprising orthodontists have also capitalized on bone’s accommodating nature to improve the bite efficiency and smile (or snarl?) of man’s best friends.

I suppose some dentists dream of taking on greater challenges in the animal realm, but I just hope they appreciate that any change stems from bone’s calm, controlled response to stress. It just moves away from those tooth-root bullies.

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Should you need another conversation starter, try this. Growing evidence supports the theory that teeth developed from scales on the outside our finny ancestors’ bodies and gradually migrated inside while morphing into enamel, dentin, cementum, and the PD … layer.

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Are you looking for the perfect holiday gift? Nothing expresses your sincerity, big heart, and generosity more than a subscription to this blog MuscleAndBone.Info (free) and a copy of Bones, Inside and Out, modestly priced at your favorite bookseller.

The title question just shouts Thanksgiving, but what’s the basis of it? Equipped with the following answer, you will be the center of festive table talk again this year. Here is the gist of it–in a roundabout way.

Skeletal muscles differ from one another according to whether they are suited better for short-term, powerful demands or sustained moderate contractions. Those muscles capable of producing sudden, explosive contractions are categorized as fast twitch because they can contract up to seventy times per second; but they can only do so in short bursts before they fatigue. By contrast, slow-twitch fibers can repeatedly contract at a much lower rate for hours without tiring.

Some people naturally have more fast-twitch or slow-twitch muscle fibers than others; and to capitalize on what nature provided, athletes gravitate to physical activities that best highlight their attributes. People with a preponderance of fast-twitch muscle fibers are good at sprinting, jumping, and power lifting; all are endeavors that require sudden short bursts of power, which are over before any oxygen debt is realized. Conversely, athletes endowed with a preponderance of slow-twitch muscle fibers will find their efforts better rewarded in endurance activities such as rowing, cross-country skiing, and long-distance running. These endeavors require a steady supply of oxygen over many minutes or even hours.

Guess which type of muscle fibers these fabled racers had?

Getting back to Thanksgiving table talk, turkeys have both types of muscle. They use their breast and wing muscles to flap their way onto tree branches. This requires sudden forceful contractions, the kind of activity provided by fast-twitch muscles. By contrast, while leisurely scratching and strutting throughout the day, the birds rely on the slow-twitch muscles that populate their legs and thighs. These muscles’ constant and prolonged demand for oxygen is supplied by the abundance of a reddish molecule known as myoglobin, muscle’s version of hemoglobin. When heated, myoglobin turns brown—hence the term “dark meat” for cooked turkey thighs and legs. The breasts and wings are “white meat,” because these fast-twitch muscles have far less myoglobin.

Astounded as your dinner table companions will be with your grasp of turkey muscle physiology and biochemistry, they may wonder why you have wandered from your annual fascinating discourses on the glories of bone, some of which aboutbone.com has previously highlighted:

•             A Bone Lover’s Thanksgiving Nightmare
•             Wishbone-Related Topics to Bring Up (or Not) at Thanksgiving Dinner
•             It Takes a Turkey to Call a Turkey

Explain that muscle is bone’s closest friend, and an in-depth understanding of one demands an equal grasp of the other. With that in mind, the blog, now renamed to reflect this companionship, will begin extolling the virtues of both, separately and in combination.

Happy Thanksgiving feasting–and yakking.

Rather than envenomating their prey, many snakes get a toothy hold on their next meal, coil their serpentine body around it, and squeeze. They soon asphyxiate their prey. Anacondas, pythons, boa constrictors, as well as less-fearsomely sized king, gopher, and bull snakes all prepare dinner this way.

These facts have caused inquiring minds to wonder, “Why don’t snakes asphyxiate themselves with the pressure exerted on their own lungs during this embrace?” Scientists now have the answer. To understand it, here’s a bit of snake anatomy.

Snakes ribs, as many as 200 pairs, float. In other words, the ribs attach at only one end, to the spine. Therefore their skeletons readily adapt to changing body girth, for instance when an anaconda swallows a pig. For comparison, the top ten pairs of human ribs attach to the breastbone as well as the spine, and only the lower two sets are floating.

Additionally, constrictors have a special muscle attached to each rib and to the spine. Known as the levator costa, this muscle’s contraction lifts the rib upward and outward to expand the body cavity. That is important, because snakes do not have diaphragms, so the only way they can pump air in and out of their lungs, which extend back about a third of their body length, is to contract and relax their levator costa muscles. That works fine when the snake is resting or on the move.

When it embraces its prey, however, the snake also equally embraces itself and therefore cannot breathe, at least in the portions of its body performing the deadly hug. Can constrictors activate their levator costa muscles selectively, breathing with ones not involved in the squeeze? That would be efficient but would require sophisticated neural control—somewhat analogous to humans breathing in and out of just one lung. Enterprising investigators found the answer by applying standard, human blood pressure cuffs around the bodies of boa constrictors and placing masks over their faces (the snakes’, not the investigators’). Then the researchers studied rib motions in both constricted and unconstructed portions by recording electrical activity and video X-ray images. By placing the blood pressure cuff in different locations along the snake’s trunk and repeating the pressurizations, the investigators determined that constrictors exclusively use levator costa muscles only in free areas and do not even attempt to breathe using the muscles in the pressurized areas. They (the investigators, not the snakes) call the phenomenon modular lung ventilation, which allows constrictors to squeeze and breathe simultaneously. Bones, muscles, and nerves working together. This amazing efficiency of nature will definitely provide me some solace if I ever encounter a python’s embrace.    

This time last year, I posted A Plea for Anatomical Correctness at Halloween. Apparently the plea went unheeded, because I have recently seen these frightful creatures. Rest assured, the Bone Police are on their way. Let me know if you spot other cases of osseous infractions, and I will report them to the authorities.

September 17 probably came and went without you recognizing that it was About Bone’s fifth birthday. I started blogging then in 2017 because I wanted to write a book about bone. Before accepting such a proposal, a publisher wants to know that the author has a “platform.” This might be, for instance, 10 million twitter followers or international visibility in the daily news. So to entice a publisher, I started blogging to increase my platform.

A year later when I submitted the proposal for Bone, Inside and Out, to publishers, WW Norton bit, even though my platform was somewhat less impressive than John Grisham’s or Jennifer Aniston’s.

After WWN accepted the final manuscript for Bone in December 2019, I discovered that I had more stories to tell about bone. Some topics hadn’t fit in the book. I also found new topics, and readers suggested others.

Feeling ambitious, I started blogging every week, but I soon discovered that each post was very time consuming because I wanted to put bone’s best foot forward. Now, I post every three to four weeks. That is a pace I can sustain and which I hope will not overburden loyal readers.

Today’s post is #105. The most popular posts in 2021 were

Bone or Ivory? A Cautionary Note for Collectors and Gifters (2017)

Serpent slither from the sea, meaning is ambiguous. (2020)

The Versatile Cannon Bone. What Is It? (2018)

Skulls in Fine Art (2018)

The dates in parentheses indicate the year that the article was posted. So you can see that interest in bone is durable. If you find yourself in solitary confinement or trapped on a desert island that happens to have internet connection, you might enjoy scrolling through the archives and reading/rereading some of the other 100 posts.

I could probably continue blogging about nothing other than bone forever, but I have decided to extend my reach and begin including posts on bone’s closest friend: muscle. Many of the upcoming posts, beginning with #106, A Snake’s Breathtaking Embrace, will feature interesting information on both bone and muscle.

WW Norton found my relatively paltry but slowly enlarging platform acceptable because they have agreed to publish Muscle, The Gripping Story of Strength and Movement in June 2023. They now have the final manuscript, and Muscle is in production. (Remarkable to me but characteristic of the industry, a publisher typically requires nine months to turn a manuscript into a finished product.) I will keep you informed as I sign off on jacket design, ask notables to write endorsements for the back cover, and other milestones.

In the meantime, join with me in celebrating About Bone’s fifth birthday. An author’s platform can never be too big, so let your social media contacts know how much fun reading about bone and muscle can be.

Rick Steves signs off with “Keep on traveling.” I say, “Keep on learning.”