What are osteoclasts?
1 Answer
When learning Biology and other Biology based subjects, one of best ways to learn things is to understand the meanings of the words. If you learn one by breaking it apart, you can figure out others and can even guess an answer and may be close or correct.
This word has the base word as osteo- which means bone. So now you can see that we are now looking at something to do with bones. The suffix (ending) is -clast which means to break.
Also note that this is a noun. We are looking at noun that means bone breaker. Not to break bone, but a bone breaker since it is a noun.
This has to be a cell that breaks bone. You have millions of these in your body that are always breaking down bone. But homeostasis requires an other cell that builds bone. This one is called an osteoblast. Now I bet you can tell what -blast means.
You replace most of your bone tissue every 4-5 years. This process is called bone remodeling.
If you take up weight lifting, the tendons pulling on the bones will produce more bone where it pulls.
Your bones can tell if you are left or right handed.
