The morphology of human hyoid bone in relation to sex, age and body proportions.

Morphological aspects of the human hyoid bone are, like many other skeletal elements in human body, greatly affected by individual's sex, age and body proportions. Still, the known sex-dependent bimodality of a number of body size characteristics overshadows the true within-group patterns. Given the ambiguity of the causal effects of age, sex and body size upon hyoid morphology the present study puts the relationship between shape of human hyoid bone and body proportions (height and weight) under scrutiny of a morphological study. Using 211 hyoid bones and landmark-based methods of geometric morphometrics, it was shown that the size of hyoid bones correlated positively with measured body dimensions but showed no correlation if the individual's sex was controlled for. For shape variables, our results revealed that hyoid morphology is clearly related to body size as expressed in terms of the height and weight. Yet, the hyoid shape was shown to result primarily from the sex-related bimodal distribution of studied body size descriptors which, in the case of the height-dependent model, exhibited opposite trends for males and females. Apart from the global hyoid shape given by spatial arrangements of the greater horns, body size dependency was translated into size and position of the hyoid body. None of the body size characters had any impact on hyoid asymmetry. Ultimately, sexually dimorphic variation was revealed for age-dependent changes in both size and shape of hyoid bones as male hyoids tend to be more susceptible to modifications with age than female bones.

[Suicide with home-made gun]. / Sebevrazda podomácku vyrobenou strelnou zbraní.

Three cases of suicide by single bullet injury to head by home-made guns with immediate incapacitation are reported in following article. Zip gun (home-made gun) is a improvised firearm, usually a handgun. Home-made guns are almost always single-shot, as the improvised construction sometimes makes them weak enough to be destroyed by the act of firing. Zip guns are mostly smoothbore. Zip gun injuries, although unique today, represent a special category of missile injury with atypical low velocity terminal ballistics.

[Frequency of occurrence of traumatic aortic rupture in automobile passengers involved in a frontal crash with a static or dynamic obstacle]. / Cetnost výskytu úrazové ruptury aorty u posádek automobilu pri celním stretu se statickou ci dynamickou protijedoucí prekázkou.

There is a lesion of aortic thoracic complex in car-passengers during the frontal clash to a static or to a dynamic antipodal obstacle is described in this study. It is a retrospective analysis. Facts were noted especially from dissectional documents. All from 298 men died. The main cause of car-passengers death was a weighty traumatic lesion of cardiovascular system in 58.7%. The aortic rupture was noted in 98 (32.9%) people, the death was in 90.8% directly on the road and 9.2% at hospital. From the whole people who were accepted to a hospital were 9 (8.9%) with a traumatic aortic rupture. But nobody of them was transported to a special center and everyone died due to traumatic lesion of cardiovascular system. Statistical significant cofactors of aortic rupture were atherosclerosis of aortic wall and intensity of clash. Therefore we can expect an aortic rupture in every third dead frontal car crash participant on a dynamic or static obstacle. Nearly 10% from men with traumatic aortic rupture were transported to a hospital. No aortic rupture was diagnosed.