Bone vessels and cartilage. In the human body at birth, there are over 270 bones, but many of these fuse together during development, leaving a total of 206 separate bones in the adult, not counting numerous small sesamoid bones. The largest bone in the body is the femur or thigh-bone, and the smallest is the stapes in the middle ear. The Greek word for bone is ὀστέον ("osteon"), hence the many terms that use it as a prefix – such as osteopathy. Bone is not uniformly solid, but consists of a flexible matrix (about 30%) and bound minerals (about 70%) which
The Amazing Bone The Amazing Bone The Amazing Bone is a 32-page picture book by William Steig from 1976. It was nominated for the Caldecott Medal in 1977; however, Leo & Diane Dillon's "" won, so "The Amazing Bone" only received the Caldecott Honor Award. It was the first of Steig's few books in which the main character is a female. The story is about how Pearl the pig is walking home from school, and finds a magic bone on the ground, which has the ability to imitate any sound and speak in any language (It samples Spanish, Polish and German for her).