Author: Michelle Spear, Professor of Anatomy, University of Bristol

Oksana Shufrych/Shutterstock.com Many women recognise the pattern. A routine procedure takes longer than expected. It’s more uncomfortable than promised. The doctor reassures them that this sometimes happens, or suggests anxiety or muscle tension might be playing a role. But often the explanation is simpler – and anatomical. This mismatch between bodies and procedures isn’t related […]

Rimma Bondarenko/Shutterstock.com You push back from the table after Christmas lunch, full from an excellent feast. You really couldn’t manage another bite – except, perhaps, a little bit of pudding. Somehow, no matter how much you’ve eaten, there always seems to be room for dessert. Why? What is it about something sweet that tempts us […]

Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock.com As Christmas Eve draws near, we’re reminded of the tireless elves behind the scenes, toiling in workshops to bring festive magic to life. Imagine Santa’s elves not as fantasy figures but as highly adapted beings designed for the unique demands of their world. From enhanced resilience to happy hormones and efficient energy production, […]

Frankenstein’s creature is coming back to life – again. As Guillermo del Toro’s new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece airs on Netflix, we provide an anatomist’s perspective of her tale of reanimation. Could an assembled body ever breathe, bleed or think? When Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818, anatomy was a science on the edge […]

There’s something oddly luxurious about a lie-in. The sun filters through the curtains, the alarm clock is blissfully silent, and your body stays at rest. Yet lie-ins are often treated as indulgences, sometimes framed as laziness or a slippery slope to soft living. When the holidays arrive and alarm clocks are switched off, or are […]