Researches at the University of Minnesota have grown a functioning rat heart. The team, lead by Doctor Doris Taylor, accomplished the task by taking a dead rat heart, removing the cells but leaving the basic heart structure and filling the old rat heart with cells from a newborn rat.
"At this point, we've made like six dozen rat hearts," said a research assistant. "They're piling up in the corner of the lab, beating and flopping about. They are not a hit with the consumer. In fact, no one wants an entire rat let alone a just its heart. This Rat-By-The-Bit-Shop is completely stupid. I'm going to update my resume."
The rat hearts are retailing for $6.95, reduced from $12.97. Besides for powering your standard rat, they can be used to pump small amounts of blood.
One day, humans may be able to use this rat-hearted technology to build human hearts (with not so much rat in them), using stem cells found within bone marrow.
The next step of this experiment is to stick one of these hearts back into a rat.
Human organ transplants are still done by transplant surgeons. Click here to find a doctor near you.
