Dr Christopher Torrens
RCSI, Republic of Ireland

Back in Biology Week 2013, The Society held a competition for the best physiology based poems. I created a twitter account (@chris_torrens) and posted a poem that sought to clear up the distinction between molarity and molality. The competition ended, my first entry was judged to have won and the die was cast. These are some of my personal favourites, beginning with that winning entry.

Epithelial & Membrane Transport

Molarity? No, molALity!
It’s mols per kilogram you see.
Volumes vary with degrees of C,
But mass is constant so kg

Different permeabilities,
Is on what the countercurrent system relies.
In the descending limb,
The solutes stay in,
So the concentration increases inside.

As they go round the bend, And start to ascend,
It’s the solute this time that shows movement.
But it all begins, In the thick ascending limb,
With the creation of the osmotic gradient.

Endocrinology

Vitamin D doesn’t come from sunlight ,
Like some neutrino on the solar wind.
It’s made in cells of the epidermis,
In response to UV light on the skin.

Education & Teaching

How do we ensure vital concepts aren’t lost.
I write silly poems,
Others invoke Game of Thrones,
As we strive to get our message across.

Neuroscience

The cell body receives lots of stimuli,
And can be excitatory or inhibitory.
Whether the threshold is met,
Depends on the net,
As they summate both spatially and temporally.
Nodes of Ranvier
Saltatory conduction
Impulse much faster.

Cardiac & Vascular Physiology

The muscle length-tension relationship,
That Starling and Frank saw in ac tion.
When it’s optimally long,
More cross bridges can form,
And that increases the force of contraction.
Nitric oxide and prostacyclin,
Prevent platelet aggregation.
From endothelium they’re released,
But when this is decreased,
It’s a hallmark of endothelial dysfunction.

Metabolic Physiology

It’s fair to say,
That hairs do not turn grey,
It depends on melanocytes in the follicle.
With age and with stress,
The pigmentation gets less,
So the new hairs that grow out are less colourful.

Human, Environmental and Exercise Physiology

Melanin is produced by melanocytes,
In the epidermal layer of the skin.
Like catecholamines,
It’s produced from tyrosines,
And is no basis to judge kith or kin.