bone
"In its structure, bone is like reinforced concrete - the collagen fibers, like the steel of reinforced concrete, provide tensile strength, while the bones' salts, like cement sand and rock of concrete, provide the compression strength."
"Bone is like a brick wall. Over time the mortar gets weak and the wall can crumble."
"bone cells are like small factories making the hard substance of the bone. Also, the fact that you have billions of bone cells in your body and where."
The linked file has a study guide for teaching cell stuff.
"The bone marrow is like a blood-cell factory. It contains stem cells that have the capacity to evolve into all three types of blood cells "
Crosby reminded me that the function of bone marrow is to produce red blood cells. Because it is, in effect, a factory for the creation of cells, Crosby says, bone marrow is like an egg: "a perfect food. It's got everything in it needed to create and sustain life."
"Bone marrow is like a breeding ground for new, young blood cells. As soon as they are mature they are released into the blood, constantly renewing the blood. "
"Red blood cells (RBCs) are born in the bone marrow of our large bones at a rate of 2 million every second! Our bone marrow is like a heavy-duty erythropoietic ward."
"His doctor, David Margolis, tells his young patients that their bone marrow is like a garden. If it is healthy, it grows red flowers (red oxygen-carrying blood cells) white flowers (white infection-fighting cells) and platelets (critical for clotting). If Antonio's transplant works, Margolis says, it will give him "new seeds" for this garden."
"Imagine our bone marrow is like a photostating machine. It will naturally produce copies based on the master copy that's given to it to be photostated. "
METAMIA is a free database of analogy and metaphor. Anyone can contribute or search. The subject matter can be anything. Science is popular, but poetry is encouraged. The goal is to integrate our fluid muses with the stark literalism of a relational database. Metamia is like a girdle for your muses, a cognitive girdle.