Blue Roses

Okay, let's work on some anatomy and physiology, shall we? If I have to do this, so do you.

I know about the lungs. Spongy, porous, R 3 lobes and L 2 lobes (because the heart fits in there). Pleury encases each lung, the fluid makes the friction less. The sac has two parts - outer is costal and lines the thoracic cavity, inner is pulmonary and surrounds the lungs specifically.

Framework for respiration - spinal column (7 C, 12 T, 5 L, 1 Coccyx), rib cage (12 ribs, 1-7 are true and connect to sternum, 8-12 are false and attach up to #7, 12 is floating and only attaches to spine), pectoral girdle (clavicle and scapula), pelvic girdle (iliac crest, pubic crest).

Two muscles on the back are possibly for inspiration - trapezious (upper back) and latismus dorsi (below that).

Exhalation is passive, needs gravity and elasticity. 4 ab muscles contract and lower the rib cage and compress the ab walls. aporneurosis (broad sheath), external obliques (most exterior of them all, corses medially), internal obliques (perpindicular to externals, course laterally), transverse abdominus (deepest, runs horizontally around).

TLC = maximun air lungs can hold (total lung capacity)
REL = reach this when done exhaling out - still lots of air left (resting expiratory level)
FRC = doesn't change in a person at any time, stays constant (functional residual capacity)

Take a deep breath to get a louder voice. Vital capacity sharply peaks, as resut of lung pressure. We take 6.3 million breaths a year - don't want it to be taxing.

A male's vocal folds are 29 mm, a woman's are 21. A man's vibrates 120 Hz/sec, while a woman's is about 220, and a child's is approximately 300. Lance's are actually bigger than normal and vibrate slower. Hence his very big adam's apple and deep voice.

Glottis is between the vocal folds. It's about 8 mm long in a man, 6-7 in a woman. Supraglottis is the airway above it, subglottis below. There are false vocal folds above the true ones, they even have the same places of origin and insertion, but they don't actually do much in the way of speaking.

There are many muscles in the larynx. They scare me. Greatly. In fact, most of the muscles do. I better go review them. I might post them in the morning for us all to delight in. Don't you love me?