Critical Thinking Questions

For whom would an appreciation of the structural characteristics of the human heart come more easily: an alien who lands on Earth, abducts a human, and dissects his heart, or an anatomy and physiology student performing a dissection of the heart on her very first day of class? Why?

Name the six levels of organization of the human body.

The ovaries and the testes are a part of which body system? Can these organs be members of more than one organ system? Why or why not?

Explain why the smell of smoke when you are sitting at a campfire does not trigger alarm, but the smell of smoke in your residence hall does.

Identify three different ways that growth can occur in the human body.

When you open a bottle of sparkling water, the carbon dioxide gas in the bottle form bubbles. If the bottle is left open, the water will eventually “go flat.” Explain these phenomena in terms of atmospheric pressure.

On his midsummer trek through the desert, Josh ran out of water. Why is this particularly dangerous?

Identify the four components of a negative feedback loop and explain what would happen if secretion of a body chemical controlled by a negative feedback system became too great.

What regulatory processes would your body use if you were trapped by a blizzard in an unheated, uninsulated cabin in the woods?

In which direction would an MRI scanner move to produce sequential images of the body in the frontal plane, and in which direction would an MRI scanner move to produce sequential images of the body in the sagittal plane?

If a bullet were to penetrate a lung, which three anterior thoracic body cavities would it enter, and which layer of the serous membrane would it encounter first?

Which medical imaging technique is most dangerous to use repeatedly, and why?

Explain why ultrasound imaging is the technique of choice for studying fetal growth and development.