Greg Egan on Nostr: TIL about “cancellous bone”. I’d previously misunderstood what the solid sample ...

TIL about “cancellous bone”. I’d previously misunderstood what the solid sample taken in a bone marrow biopsy was composed of; I thought it was part of the outer, “cortical” bone. But today the doctor doing the biopsy showed me the sample and explained exactly what it was.

I had a naïve picture of marrow being soft & pliable as toothpaste, from memories of sucking it out of the bones in lamb stew. But the interior of living bones is a network of rods & plates, with the squishy bits, like hematopoietic stem cells, in the pores of this solid sponge.