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SVC = superior vena cavaAo = aortaPA = pulmonary arteryPV = pulmonary veinRA = right atriumLA = left atriumLV = left ventricleRV = right ventricle Enlarge ImageKey to the heart? Scientists have identified what they say are the heart's "master" stem cells.Credit: Lei Bu et al., Nature 460, 113 (2009) Scientists have identified a cardiac stem cell that gives rise to all of the major cell types in the human heart. The find opens the way to using patients' own cells to heal their damaged hearts. The cells in question express a protein, called Islet 1, which is present in...

Noncontroversial research wins another convert. Alabama event planner Carron Morrow was hanging Japanese lanterns for a wedding last summer when she suffered her fourth heart attack. A week later, the doctor told the 58-year-old mother of two she was a walking time bomb: The right side of her heart was functioning at less than 50 percent. They tried stents and a defibrillator. Then she was put on the heart transplant list.   "All I could do was cry," she says. "I just thought, 'I'm about to die.' There's 100,000 people waiting for a heart."  By fall, she grew worse.  "I...