Have you ever noticed that textbooks seem to exaggerate the actual reality of the situation, especially regarding medicine and human anatomy & physiology? According to my human physiology textbook, for example, proteins have feet…yep, which hydrolyze ATP into ADP and an inorganic phosphate group. The proteins then proceed to walk along the microtubules of the cellular skeleton. Seriously…? Proteins with feet? Why the need to animate biological macromolecules…especially in college? I’m perfectly capable of comprehending that proteins do not actually possess limbs and therefore, are otherwise capable of traveling along the microtubules of the cellular cytoskeleton.

Also, regarding the coloration of the various diagrams in textbooks, I’m pretty sure that the pancreas isn’t actually purple and that the different lobes of the brain aren’t rainbow-colored. I understand that the color differentiation is intended to simplify and facilitate comprehension…but, I can’t even begin to fathom how confused I will be someday when I’m dissecting a cadaver in medical school, expecting to locate a purple pancreas.