Hello, everybody. So today we get to talk about--
gosh, I think I just said that the kidneys are one of
my very favorite systems ever. And I mean, I just--
I know it's true. I know that every system
I talk about I'm like, but this is the best one. And the reproductive system,
I mean, who cannot say this is their favorite system? I mean, it really
is quite fascinating. So we can start
this conversation by admiring some artwork
from my son. This was done--he's now 10, and
this was done five years ago when he was a little five-year-
old kindergarten slime. And I was prepping for a lecture
one night in the living room, and he was supposed
to be asleep. And he crawls out of his bed and
tromps down the stairs and comes
and climbs into my lap, and of course I'm like, get away
from me you stinking parasite. But he gets all cute and cuddly,
you know. All right. Parasites sometimes
sitting in your lap, that's okay. And he looks at the picture of
what I am, you know, prepping for me anatomy--or my
physio class the next morning, and he sees this. Oh, and his eyes get really big. My friends and their children
all know that reproduction-- the reproductive system,
all things body-- in my household we talk about
everything and have since they came out of my body. And often--I mean, the number of
times that I've had to call up their friend's
parents and be like, "Yeah, my kids were teaching
your kids about sperm and eggs today." My friends are always like, "Oh
my God. What's wrong with you?" So this is the inspiring image
for young Mr. Keenan who-- that made him want to create
this lovely replication of sperm and eggs. It's quite nice. And it's always nice to draw
my brain back to those cute, little days. He was a rather avid artist,
and actually drew pictures of cadavers that he gave to
his kindergarten teacher. That caused a couple of
conversations as well. So the reproductive system,
I'm, you know, a huge fan. It's fascinating. And we're--
it's the only system, obviously, where we divide up our
conversation by male humans and female humans. And in spite of doing that--and
we will carry it through-- we're going to start out by
looking at gross anatomy. We're going to follow up with
gamete formation. I mean, Keenan would love it. We're going to talk about how
we're going to make sperm and eggs. And then we're going to talk
about how--like the anatomy required to combine
sperm and eggs, because really
the reproductive system, that's kind of the whole point. We're going to tie it all up
in the end with a conversation about how even though we spend
all of this time separating out the fellas
and the ladies, the fact is that we-- our similarities are a whole
heck of a lot more striking than you might think. So then I had to flip a coin. You know, do the fellas go first
or do the ladies go first, and that was a tough choice. And then I had to try and think
of a good transition to get us in to talking about
the fellas first. That was not an easy task. I don't think I was successful. All my transitions ended up
being inappropriate. So let's just say, now we will
talk about male anatomy.