the.com/femur
the longest, strongest bone you own, quietly bearing your whole dramatic existence.
means The thigh bone, running from hip to knee — the largest and strongest bone in the human body.
from Straight from Latin femur, meaning 'thigh,' which anatomists kept wholesale rather than translate. Its plural, femora, still wears its Latin formal dress; the related adjective 'femoral' shows up wherever doctors talk about the leg's great artery or the joint at the hip.
- strength
- Withstands forces up to 1,800 pounds before snapping.
- length
- Roughly a quarter of your total height.
- blood factory
- Marrow inside churns out millions of cells daily.
- break warning
- A fracture can be life-threatening from blood loss.
- age clue
- Forensic scientists read it to estimate stature and sex.
for instance
lucy's femur — 3.2 million year old hominin skeleton from ethiopia, discovered 1974
tyrannosaurus rex femur — sue the t-rex's 26-inch thighbone at field museum chicago
andre the giant's femur — wrestler with femur over 20 inches long, tallest man on record at 7'4"