Acetabulum. Be frightened!

(Note: It’s tough to follow a post like my last one, so I’m choosing a radical departure from park service topics. Enjoy the anatomy lesson.)

Life is amazing. Search engines often aren’t. After last week when I was doing an image search for the pelvic bone found in the granary, sidebar ads kept popping up based on the terms I was exploring. Google promised me they were relevant; I shake my head in disbelief to see what appeared.

First, a review. That lovely curvy bone you feel (if you’re thin enough) when you put your hands on your hips is your ilium. In front of your bladder is the pubis. When you ride a horse too long, you notice it in each ischium. Those three bones are fused at the acetabulum, which is the round socket that receives the ball of the femur (thigh bone).

Most people like their acetabula. They serve you well every time you bend at the hips, which is all the time. Most acetabula happily serve their owners for, oh, a lifetime.

Enter Google ads, putting the fear of disease and trauma on us. Look:

“Acetabulum is one of the many conditions that affect Americans.” Then they showed a scary picture of this “condition”:

 

 

And, if that weren’t distressing enough for budding hypochondriacs,

“Clinical trials are crucial to find new treatments for Acetabulum. You can check for the clinical trials currently active to find new treatments for Acetabulum. We can beat this disease together!”

Really, Google??? Must you?

Today, make a bold decision. Choose not to be apprehensive concerning your own hip socket. And remember to take search engine results with a grain of salt.