Stand-up Gary Petersen (@comedygaryp) joins host @daveciaccio to talk about pig hearts in baboons, lab-grown lungs in pigs, a frog that can regrow limbs and the Italian scientist who is planning to do a head (ok, body) transplant in China.
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Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero wants to carry out the first human head transplant operation and believes it could help people who have been paralyzed from the neck down to walk again.
  (more...)Scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch just successfully transplanted lab-grown lungs into pigs — an exciting development towards being able to bioengineer lungs for humans someday, too.
  (more...)Millions of people live with amputated limbs that are gone forever. But that might not be the case in the future. For the first time, scientists have shown that adult frogs can regrow amputated legs. They say the approach can work in humans, too. “There is no reason that human bodies can’t regenerate,” said Tufts University biologist Michael Levin, who led the new research.
  (more...)In four adjacent enclosures transplantation researcher Bruno Reichart kept four happy baboons. “They can hop around, eat, drink and they are enjoying life,” he says. “They watch TV—their favorite is the cartoon with the chipmunk.” Most importantly, he says, they were healthy and normal—which is astonishing, given the fact that the hearts beating life in their chests were anything but normal for a baboon.
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