“A Novel Way to Study Muscle Anatomy of the Beef Animal” by Singh, Guru, Gwartney and Jones

In an academic and industrial setting, it is difficult to teach the anatomy of a beef animal. It has required a beef carcass fabricated into wholesale and retail cuts or dissection of individual muscles. This could only happen in a laboratory, and substantial cost would be incurred for each lab session. Books or manuals can assist somewhat but these are only twodimensional in nature, making it difficult to understand some of the spatial relationships between muscles. It is now possible to use a web site (http://bovine.unl.edu) as a resource for the muscular anatomy of the beef animal. The site helps users understand bovine muscular and skeletal anatomy through the use of interactive 3D and 2D graphics simulations, pictures, drawings, and navigation through a series of well-defined information modules. The sections below describe the procedures and methodology followed to develop the content, material, and online infrastructure.