1. Busy Rotation on Twitter. 2. What is Pyknosis?

The author of pyknosis comments on his upcoming inpatient hematology rotation, a part of his hematology/oncology fellowship:

	pyknosis Of course, it's never a good thing when the person you're taking the reigns from tells you they've never worked so hard or slept so little. 3 minutes ago from web
	pyknosis I will be running the inpatient hematology service for the next month. I recommend not getting leukemia (ever, but esp. not this month!). 4 minutes ago from web
	pyknosis Just got sign out on 18 patients. Whee! 6 minutes ago from web

pyknosis So tired I slept until ~4pm today, this being my 1st day off in awhile -- tho I was awoken by 2 pages this am. Sleep debt pay-off is costly. about 1 hour ago from web

Pyknosis is the irreversible condensation of chromatin in the nucleus of a cell undergoing programmed cell death or apoptosis. From Wikipedia:


Apoptosis. Image source: Wikipedia, public domain.

Apoptosis is not necessarily bad. In fact, the lack of apoptosis may lead to undesirable consequences. For example, the incomplete differentiation in two toes (syndactyly) shown below is due to lack of apoptosis:


Incomplete differentiation in two toes (syndactyly) due to lack of apoptosis. Image source: Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License.

Updated: 01/03/2008