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The normal ranges of the body's key measurements, which act as a baseline against which illness is judged.
Vital signs are temperature, pulse, breathing, blood pressure and oxygen: normal core temperature about thirty-seven degrees; adult pulse about sixty to a hundred a minute; breathing about twelve to twenty a minute; blood pressure around one-twenty over eighty; oxygen in the upper nineties; children run faster.
Body Fluid Compartments
How the body's total water is distributed between compartments.
Thermoregulation
The hypothalamic balance between heat gain and heat loss that holds core temperature steady, including during fever and exercise.
Membrane Transport
The ways substances cross the cell membrane, either downhill without energy or uphill using energy, which lets a cell control what enters and leaves.
Exercise Physiology
The changes in the heart, lungs, muscles and metabolism that let the body meet the greatly increased demand for oxygen and energy during exercise.
The Resting Membrane Potential
The steady electrical voltage across the membrane of a resting cell, set up mainly by potassium, which nerve and muscle cells use as their starting point.