I Menstruate for Science
I know there are all kinds of biologically good reasons why Aunt Flo comes every month and I know that your body gets really unhappy when you muck with that. But damn, that is a pain in the ass, especially if you have no intention of reproducing.
But if I could use all that shedded material to make muscle cells, that would be pretty damn cool.
Scientists obtained menstrual blood from nine women and cultivated it for about a month, focusing on a kind of cell that can act like stem cells.
Some 20 percent of the cells began beating spontaneously about three days after being put together in vitro with cells from the hearts of rats. The cells from menstrual blood eventually formed sheet-like heart-muscle tissue.
The success rate is 100 times higher than the 0.2-0.3 percent for stem cells taken from human bone marrow, according to Shunichiro Miyoshi, a cardiologist at Keio University's school of medicine, who is involved in the research.
Separate in-vivo experiments showed that the condition of rats who had suffered heart attacks improved after they received the cells derived from menstrual blood.
So they're not actually stem cells, but they can be made into particularly good muscle cells. And keeping your own menstrual blood for future cell generation eliminates the risk that your body will reject treatment.
Science is awesome.
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Stem cells from an unexpected source: Researchers seeking new and more abundant sources of stem cells for use in regenerative medicine have identified a potentially unlimited, noncontroversial, easily collectable, and inexpensive source — menstrua... Read More
You know that no man alive will let menstrual cells be put into his body for any reason whatsoever.
How do you go from THE CURSE to hey let's cultivate some menstrual blood and see what happens? Science is most definitely awesome.
I think you should amend that last comment to say "Science is awesome and GROSS."
Still, a cool idea- but like emtwo, HOW did they arrive at this decision? I sure hope it wasn't a dinner table brainstorming session.
Now I have "She Blinded Me with Science" in my head, but only the sound clip they play in whatever infomercial for whatever CD compilations it's been in. I'm fairly certain I've never listened to the whole song all the way through.
Sometimes the best science is the grossest.
(Over the years, I've been blinded by both geometry and chemistry.)