Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

A pattern of lipids in the blood. A lipid profile usually includes the levels of total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, triglycerides, and the calculated low-density lipoprotein (LDL) ‘cholesterol.

Another word for “fat.” (Please see the various meanings of fat.) A lipid is chemically defined as a substance that is insoluble in water and soluble in alcohol, ether, and chloroform. Lipids are an important component of living cells. Together with carbohydrates and proteins, lipids are the main constituents of plant and animal cells. Cholesterol and triglycerides are lipids. Lipids are easily stored in…

One of the two fleshy folds that surround the opening of the mouth. The upper lip is separated from the nose by the philtrum, the area that lies between the base of the nose and the pigmented edge (called the vermillion border or the carmine margin) of the upper lip. The upper and lower lips…

A map of the genes on a chromosome based on linkage analysis. A linkage map does not show the physical distances between genes but rather their relative positions, as determined by how often two gene loci are inherited together. The closer two genes are (the more tightly they are linked), the more often they will be inherited together.…

Study aimed at establishing linkage between genes. Today linkage analysis serves as a way of gene-hunting and genetic testing. Linkage is the tendency for genes and other genetic markers to be inherited together because of their location near one another on the same chromosome. A gene is a functional physical unit of heredity that can be passed…

Having to do with the tongue.

A catheter (tube) that is passed through a vein to end up in the thoracic (chest) portion of the vena cava (the large vein returning blood to the heart) or in the right atrium of the heart. Central venous lines have a number of different uses. A central venous line allows concentrated solutions to be infused with less risk of complications. It permits monitoring of…

A catheter (tube) that is passed through a vein to end up in the thoracic (chest) portion of the vena cava (the large vein returning blood to the heart) or in the right atrium of the heart. Central lines have a number of different uses. A central line allows concentrated solutions to be infused with less risk of complications. It permits monitoring of special blood…

An arm or a leg.

An hallucination in which things, people, or animals seem smaller than they would be in real life. Lilliputian refers to the “little people” who lived (fictionally) on the island of Lilliput in Jonathan Swift’s 1726 masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels. The term “Lilliputian hallucination” was coined by John Todd, an English psychiatrist (1914-1987) who also called it the Alice in…