cornerofmadness: (books)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
Jaws: The Story of a Hidden EpidemicJaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic by Sandra Kahn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


More like a 2.5 read but I rounded up because of all the citations at the end of the book. I can no longer talk to my cousins who are dentists to judge their feelings about this. A dentist I saw as an emergency gave me the book (maybe because he knows I have pre-dental students in my a &p classes, It's not because I have a small jaw and crooked teeth).

It's a strange book, repetitive and honestly felt more like someone's doctoral thesis than anything else. Their hypothesis is two fold, one that orthodontics seem to be more out to generate money than to get to the root of the issues and two, it has less to do with genetics (not sure I entirely agree) and more to do with how we hold our jaws at rest (mouth breathing = smaller jaws, weaker chins, crowded teeth. Then again I tend to hold my jaw shut and I have room in my jaw for all my wisdom teeth. Is it that I don't mouth breathe or is it all the Neanderthal variants in my genome?)

The whole book is a bunch of anecdotal evidence about that thesis (with odd photos about attractiveness which seems out of the scope of what is being presented). I basically read it to get it off my shelf. It's not something I see recommending.



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cornerofmadness: (books)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
Cells at Work!, Vol. 1Cells at Work!, Vol. 1 by Akane Shimizu

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I don't usually talk about myself in a book review but it's relevant here. I'm a doctor who also teaches anatomy and physiology and this is the perfect manga for science geeks (which is why it got tagged science non fiction because it is pretty damned dead on in its descriptions of the cells). A manga that teaches biology and is engaging and endearing as it does so? Hell yes, count me in (and I'm going to suggest the students have a gander)

It is exactly as the title suggests, a story about cells working in the body. There are two major point of view cells, a Red Blood Cell (female) and a White Blood Cell (a male neutrophil). The story follows them as she delivers 'packages' for the body (i.e. oxygen and carbon dioxide) and as he wanders the body looking for invaders to fight.

He gets all sorts of things to fight, the flu, pollen, staph aureus, pseudomonas and more. Not only do we get that we are treated to all the other cells like the mast cells pumping out histamine, Killer T-cells being terrifying, Naive T-cells learning their jobs and the utterly adorable Platelets. Each cell gets a side bar introduction that is accurate as heck and even brings in lesser known stuff like L-Selectin being how neutrophils cling to torn tissues.

I am thrilled to have finally gotten the chance to read this. I'm looking forward gleefully to more.



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