About those ribs!

As much as I would love to be sitting with you and enjoying the sumptuous ribs displayed above, today we will speak of a much different set of ribs. The human rib cage.

Sorry for sorely disappointing you. I know that your mouth is watering right now for some delicious cooked ribs.

I know, I am just a very wicked person.

Note also, that men and women are usually born with the same number of ribs, despite the 'fact' that women were made from one of 'Adam's' ribs. Just saying!

Anyway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Here goes.

The ribcage is a part of the skeleton of humans and some animals. It is made up of curved bones called ribs. The rib cage is found in the chest area. It protects a person's internal organs from damage. Most humans have 12 pairs of rib bones with one from each pair on each side of the chest. Some people may have 11 or 13 pairs of rib bones. Causes of rib number variations may be due to a genetic mutation which causes some people to be born with one or two extra ribs.

Gray’s Anatomy doesn’t give percentages, but notes that whereas most people have 12 pairs, some have extra “cervical ribs” (ribs on the 7th cervical vertebra) or lumbar ribs (ribs on the 1st lumbar vertebra), or have fewer ribs than usual, lacking the last pair of floating ribs. Sometimes the variation (missing or added rib) is unilateral and sometimes bilateral.

Did you know that the ribs inside your body are divided into three categories.

The first category contains what are called True Ribs:

The first seven (7) pairs of ribs are called 'true ribs'. They connect to the Spine by ligaments at the back, and connect to the Sternum by Costal Cartilage in the front. Costal cartilage is elastic, and allows the ribcage to expand during respiration.

False Ribs

The next three (3) pairs of rib bones (8, 9 and 10) are called 'false ribs'. Like the true ribs, false ribs are connected to the spine at the back. The primary difference in true ribs and false ribs comes in where the false ribs connect at the front. Instead of connecting to the Sternum, false ribs actually connect to the lowest true ribs.

Floating Ribs

The last two pairs of ribs (11 and 12) are the smallest of all the rib bones, and are called 'floating ribs'. They get the name 'floating rib' because they are connected to the spine at the back, but are not connected to anything at the front, this appearing to 'float'.

If these floating ribs were connected to the sternum, we could not breathe properly, as the chest needs space to expand and decrease. The rib cage is also called the thoracic cavity.

The bones are filled with bone marrow.

A skeleton is the hard structure that protects the internal organs of a living thing. Skeletons can be inside the body or outside the body. In mammals, which include humans, the skeleton is made of bones. All the bones, when they are joined together, make the "skeletal system" of a body. The skeletal system or "skeleton" is under the skin, the muscle and the tissue of the body. The skeleton supports the skin, muscle and tissue, and all the organs that are inside the body. The skeleton protects important internal organs like the brain, heart and lungs. If humans did not have a skeleton, then the body would be flat as the skeleton gives the body its frame.

Creatures that have skeletons inside their bodies are mammals, birds, reptiles and fish. A skeleton that is on the inside is called an endoskeleton.

Some creatures, called arthropods, have skeletons outside their bodies. These are insects (like ants and bees), arachnids (spiders and scorpions), and crustaceans (sea creatures like crabs and lobsters). These creatures all have skeletons made of hard plates or shells. This kind of skeleton is called an exoskeleton

A new born baby has 300 bones, but as they grow up to become an adult, their bones join together and the number lowers to 206 bones.

I hope you enjoyed this refresher course on ribs. They are such a pain when we cough a lot. Poor ribs! Imagine getting cooked. Ugh!

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Some information obtained from Stevie G. on Quizzland Games. And books and Wikipedia.