WILTIMS #69: Gobble gobble

There is an issue with the text justification right now. I'm working on finding a solution.

Let me... um... "enhance" your Thanksgiving by giving you the exact physiological difference between the dark and white meat in a turkey. There are two basic types of skeletal muscle: slow-twitch and fast-twitch. Slow-twitch are used for slower, more enduring movements, as in the legs of a marathon runner. Fast-twitch (as you may have guessed) are those of the sprinter - fast but fleeting.

The slow-twitch muscles need a constant supply of oxygen in order to continue to contract for hours, so they are loaded with myoglobin, a similar molecule to hemoglobin, that store and transport oxygen. Much as hemoglobin is what gives your blood its red color, myoglobin is what tints muscle red. Slow-twitch is redder and thus browner after cooking. So this Thanksgiving, "Can you pass me some of the slow twitch muscle fibers?"

TIL: A prothrombin time (PT) is a lab test used to measure the extrinsic pathway of blood coagulation, a delay in which indicates disruption of factors XII, XI, IX and/or XIII. Partial thromboplastin time, or PTT, measures the intrinsic pathway and defects in coagulation factor VII. If both values are delayed it indicates a defect in factors common to both pathways: factor I (fibrinogen), II (prothrombin), V and X.

Relatedly, today I learned that coagulation factors are named in order of their discovery not their function, which is absolutely useless to all but a biochemistry historian...