AANPA - An Explanation of the Web's Graphics

An Explanation of the Web's Graphics

The Renal Man

		kidneys bladder
the Renal Man		the renal system

The Renal Man is adapted from Leonardo da Vinci's famous drawing of "man in equilibrium" with a super-imposed renal system (kidneys, ureters, bladder).

The kidneys help to maintain chemical equilibrium within the body.

The renal system (specifically the kidneys) has long been associated with the balance scales and thus with the astronomical constellation and astrological sign of Libra. (more details here) The comparison is easier to see if you turn the renal system image upside down. The older style of hand-held balance (often seen in illustrations of Themis, or Lady Justice) has a more obvious similarity.


renal system		balance scales		Themis

The Chemical Symbols

The yellow and black "abacus beads" represent atoms and molecules, based upon John Dalton's symbols for atoms of elements.

John Dalton was an English chemist and physicist. He was the first modern scientist to define the atom as the smallest particle of an element that will behave chemically like that element.

Dalton's symbols

John Dalton (1766-1844)

So our line of chemical beads represents:


oxygen (O)	carbon (C)	sodium (Na)	water (H₂O)	phos- phorus (P)	ammonia (NH₃)	potas- sium (K)	carbon dioxide (CO2)	magne- sium (Mg)	hydro- gen (H)	nitro- gen (N)

The dalton is a rarely used name for the measure of atomic weight. It is one-sixteenth the weight of oxygen, or approximately the weight of hydrogen.

Dalton was color-blind: to him, red looked gray. Daltonism, a form of color-blindness, is so named in his honor.