Human Biology "Just for Fun" (Newspaper Article) Exercise

Prof. Atsma © 2006

Here are the answers to the Just for Fun Exercise posted in the Plainfield Biology lab in P212. If you haven’t tried this yet, do so before reading the answers below! It is much more challenging and fun to do it that way. :-)

This is a pretty good article written for the public at large, yet has some pretty basic inaccuracies. How many can you find?!

The "Safe and Sound" section:

1. Cerebrospinal fluid (the pool of fluid the brain floats in) would be almost nothing like "jelly," as it is a fairly thin fluid. Even if the writers intend the inclusion of the arachnoid as part of this material, it would not be jelly-like (with all the clumps, etc.); something between "soupy" and "spongy" would be much closer.

2. A minor one, but the writers imply they are listing the meninges in order from outermost in, and mix up the last 2. The correct order is Dura mater, arachnoid, and pia mater (not Dura mater, pia mater, and arachnoid ).

1. There are 4 large lobes easily visible from the outside, but there are actually 5 lobes including a small one (the uncus) covered by the temporal lobe. If they did not want to go into that detail level, they needed to add the word "main" (as in "the cerebrum is divided into four main lobes") or a similar qualifier (as opposed to implying an absolute number, as they did) for their statement to be accurate.

2. Although it is true that fissures are deep grooves, the term for a more shallow grove that separates 2 lobes of the cerebrum is sulcus. The statement should read: The cerebrum is divided into four [main] lobes by grooves called sulci (the plural of sulcus).

3. A minor one, but cerebellum translates as "little cerebrum," not "the little brain."

4. Another minor one, despite ending in the letter "s" the pons is a singular structure, and the sentence should read, "The pons links...."

1. The diagram labeled "cross section" is definitely not a cross section. It is a midsagittal section.

2. In the same diagram as #1 above, the line is pointing to the left [cerebral] hemisphere, not the right. In a midsagittal section, the right side of the head as shown would be the missing half.

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