Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

An American of black African descent. The term may also be written with a hyphen as African-American. The term entered into usage largely starting in 1988, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson held a news conference to urge Americans to use it to refer to blacks. African American has largely supplanted black in health matters. For…

AFP is a plasma protein that is normally produced by the fetus. It serves as the basis for some valuable tests. AFP is manufactured principally in the fetus’s liver and, also, in the fetal gastrointestinal (GI) tract and the yolk sac, a structure temporarily present during embryonic development. The level of AFP is typically high in the…

Ankle-foot orthosis.

A toxin produced by mold that can damage the liver and may lead to liver cancer. Aflatoxins cause cancer in some animals. The fungi that produce aflatoxin grow on crops such as peanuts (especially) and wheat, corn, beans and rice. Aflatoxin is a problem particularly in undeveloped and developing countries. Aflatoxin is a naturally occurring mycotoxin produced by two types of mold: Aspergillus…

The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

The ACA is the US health care law that was enacted in March 2010. The law consists of two pieces of legislation: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA). According to the American Public Health Association, the APA “contains numerous provisions that will expand health coverage to 30 million Americans, increase…

In immunology, the strength of binding interaction between antigen and antibody molecules.

A vessel that carries blood toward the heart. A vein or venule.

A nerve that carries impulses toward the central nervous system.

Carrying toward. A vein is an afferent vessel because it carries blood from the body toward the heart. The opposite of afferent is efferent.