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 Bone People Fiction and the Pegasus Prize for Literature in 1985. The Bone People The Bone People (styled by the writer and in some editions as the bone people) is a Booker Prize-winning 1984 novel by New Zealand writer Keri Hulme. Hulme was turned down by many publishing houses before she found a small publishing house in New Zealand called Spiral. In rejecting the manuscript, William Collins, Sons wrote: Undoubtedly Miss Hulme can write but unfortunately we don't understand what she is writing about. In 1985 Spiral collaborated with English publishing house Hodder & Stoughton. The title "The Bone People" draws parallels