I had a degree in Biology and took my first engineering course, Intro to BME. At the first biomechanics lecture, our professor put up a picture of an arm bent at a right angle holding a suspended weight. The professor said this was a very inefficient system. So now I'm trying to figure out why it's inefficient - the arm seems to be holding the weight so what is wrong? He asks the class and receives the answer because energy is being lost. In my head, energy is being lost? Oh right, calories are being burned. He explains that because of the length of the arm, it burns more calories and asks, how would you make a better, more efficient arm?

As a biologist, I begin to consider the genetic manipulation, how the manipulation would have to occur at the embryonic level, and the ethics behind changing the length of the arm. What the professor was really trying to illustrate was that the arm is similar to a beam which all the engineering students had prior knowledge of and that shortening the beam or in this case the arm in theory, would lead to less energy being lost. It was at this point that I realized that I would need to learn new concepts and gain a different terminology base in order to be able to effectively communicate in BME.