What does the Skeleton Do?
If you have ever visited a construction site, you have seen workers assemble steel pieces into a rigid frame for a building. Once the building is finished, this framework is invisible.
Like a building, you have an inner framework. Your framework or skeleton, is made up of all the bones in your body. Just as a building would fall without its frame, you would collapse without your skeleton. Your skeleton have five major functions. It provides shape and support, enable you to move, and protects your organs It also produces blood cells and stores minerals and other materials until your body cells and stores minerals and other materials until your body needs them.
Shape and support Your skeleton shapes and supports your body. It is made up of about 206 bones of different shapes and sizes. Your backbone, or vertebral column, is the center of your skeleton. A total of 26 small bones, or vertebrae (VUR tuh bray) (singular vertebra), make up your backbone.
Movement and Protection Your skeleton, allows you to move. Most of the body's bones are associated with muscles, which pull on the bones to make them move. Bones also protect many of the organs in your body. For example, your skull protects your brain.
If you have ever visited a construction site, you have seen workers assemble steel pieces into a rigid frame for a building. Once the building is finished, this framework is invisible.
Like a building, you have an inner framework. Your framework or skeleton, is made up of all the bones in your body. Just as a building would fall without its frame, you would collapse without your skeleton. Your skeleton have five major functions. It provides shape and support, enable you to move, and protects your organs It also produces blood cells and stores minerals and other materials until your body cells and stores minerals and other materials until your body needs them. Shape and support Your skeleton shapes and supports your body. It is made up of about 206 bones of different shapes and sizes. Your backbone, or vertebral column, is the center of your skeleton. A total of 26 small bones, or vertebrae (VUR tuh bray) (singular vertebra), make up your backbone.
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Movement and Protection Your skeleton, allows you to move. Most of the body's bones are associated with muscles, which pull on the bones to make them move. Bones also protect many of the organs in your body. For example, your skull protects your brain.
Production and Storage of Substances Some of your bones produce substances that your body needs. For example, tissues in the long bones of your arms and legs make certain blood cells. Bones also store minerals, such as calcium. When the body needs these minerals, the bones release small amounts of them into the blood.
Know your bones!
Here are some fascinating facts you may not know about your bones:
- You have the same number of bones in your neck as a giraffe. However, a single bone is the neck of a giraffe can be as long as 25 centimeters.
- You have 27 bones in each hand and 26 bones in each foot. They account for 106 of the 206 bones in your body.
- You do not have a funny bone. You have a sensitive spot on your elbow where a nerve passes close to the skin. If you hit this spot, the area feels funny.
- No one is truly "double-jointed." People who are able to twist in weird directions have very flexible joints.
Took from: Human Body Systems; Interactive Science. Don Buckley, M. Sc.... Pearson 2011.
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