Posted on 04/03/2010 9:30:30 AM PDT by Salman
Imagine being able to image life as it happens by capturing video of the embryonic heart before it begins beating. A professor at the University of Houston, in collaboration with scientists at Baylor College of Medicine, is doing just that.
Kirill Larin, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the Cullen College of Engineering at UH, and his colleagues in the Texas Medical Center are documenting the formation of the mammalian heart through a high-resolution, non-invasive imaging device, providing perhaps the best live imagery taken of the vital organ.
"Everything we know about early development of the heart and formation of the vasculature system comes from in vitro studies of fixed tissue samples or studies of amphibian and fish embryos," Larin said. "With this technology, we are able to image life as it happens, see the heart beat in a mammal for the very first time."
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
“We are using OCT to image mouse and rat embryos, looking at video taken about seven days after conception, out of a 20-day typical mammalian pregnancy,” Larin said. “This way, we are able to capture video of the embryonic heart before it begins beating, and a day later we can see the heart beginning to form in the shape of a tube and see whether or not the chambers are contracting. Then, we begin to see blood distribution and the heart rate.”
In the face of this evidence, it is no longer a sustainable argument that HUMAN LIFE DOES NOT begin at conception! IMHO
Ping
“...and reduce the number of babies born with abnormities,”
Read “Kill the potentially imperfect”.
How about using the technology to impress upon the uninformed, just how early this “blob of tissue”, is clearly discenable as HUMAN LIFE?!?!
That would require decent human beings of which we are in very very short supply.
“...clearly discenable as HUMAN LIFE?!?!”
I’m sure there’s an “R” in there somewhere....
DISCERNABLE!
A story about a video but they give us no apparent link to the video.
Yeah - I would very much like to see it.
“Imagine being able to image life as it happens by capturing video of the embryonic heart before it begins beating.”
Does this mean that life begins at the first heartbeat? Just seeing “embryonic” and “life” in the same sentence is refreshing.
Geez! The author in Science Daily should think before writing something like the above.
A beating heart would be an indicator of a functioning
autonomous nervous system, right?
Not only is that right, that’s the whole point.
Everyone ... they are able to image the heart as it forms, before it starts to beat. And if you read the story, this was done on a rat embryo, not human.
The study is meant to understand how the heart forms. If they can look close enough to see where abnormalities develop, they’ll be one step closer to understanding why.
Why do you talk about this as if it were a bad thing? People suffer .. if we can find ways of preventing it, then why not?
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