Born With an External Heart

CNN reported yesterday on a baby born with ectopia cordis, a rare congenital condition in which the sternum (breastbone) and pericardial sac do not form properly; the heart develops outside the chest.

Before the surgery, Naseem’s heart looked like a peeled plum sitting atop his pink chest, with the aorta diving back underneath the skin. Nevertheless, the heart was beating away normally.

During the six-hour operation, surgeons first wrapped Naseem’s heart in Gore-Tex, then a layer of his own skin, to substitute for his missing pericardium, the sac that encloses the heart. The heart was then slowly eased inside his chest.

Looks like the surgery went well. Later on, surgeons will graft pieces of his ribs to construct a sternum. You may read the whole story and see a couple photographs at CNN.

Update: Ncurse has more on this over at ScienceRoll. (Edited at 09:25, 25 November 2006.)

“Displaced Katrina Couple” Asks For New Home, Then Sells It

I was rather taken aback to read this story in today’s Chicago Tribune: A Memphis church, in addition to performing other charitable acts, decided to donate a home to one family displaced by Hurricane Katrina. After conducting dozens of interviews, they selected Joshua Thompson and his (questionable) wife, Delores. Woody Baird of the Associated Press writes the following, published in the Chicago Tribune:

MEMPHIS — A church that wanted to do something special for Hurricane Katrina victims gave a $75,000 house to a couple who said they were left homeless by the storm.

But the couple sold the place without ever moving in and went back to New Orleans.

The shocking thing, though, is how little their behavior seems to bother the couple. Interviewed by WHBQ-TV, they make no effort to tell their side or offer any explanation; the show no shame and treat the incident with contempt. The Tribune story continues

“Take it up with God,” an unrepentant Joshua Thompson told a TV reporter after it was learned that he and the woman he identified as his wife had flipped the home for $88,000.

…

“Our hearts went out to them,” said Jean Phillips, a real estate agent and member of the Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ. “They actually begged for the home.”

The church was also shocked by an ungrateful interview the couple gave with WHBQ-TV in Memphis.

Words can’t properly convey the couple’s attitude; you must watch the interview to see their behavior. You may see it at CNN’s web site.

Unfortunately, incidents like these lead to a lack of desire to donate to victims of natural disasters or others in need. It’s sad when people take advantage of others’ generosity.

A New Way to See the Embryonic Development of Animals

The Daily Mail posted an article today about an upcoming National Geographic special (I first read about it on Propjets and Writings, though it’s since appeared in several other blogs as well). Called In the Womb: Animals, it’s a follow-up to National Geographic’s previous feature on the embryonic development of humans. Using a combination of ultrasound, tiny cameras, and computer graphics, they show the development of a dog, an elephant, and a dolphin in utero.

However, as P. Z. Myers points out in Pharyngula, the images are too “pretty.” The membranes and such appear to be missing, and the uteruses look too spacious. Don’t get me wrong—I strongly support attempts to make science more appealing to the public, and sometimes one has to fill in the details—I’m a big fan of the BBC’s Walking With Dinosaurs series. I’m looking forward to seeing this (it airs on National Geographic on 10 December), but I hope they will make clear just what they could record and what they had to “fill in.”

If you’re interested in learning more, BBC and the Daily Mail both have picture galleries, and additional information and some video clips are available at the National Geographic site.

Cetacean Evolution

Dolphins are my favorite animals, and I’ve always been fascinated by their interesting evolutionary path. Dolphins and whales (that is, cetaceans) are mammals like we are: they breathe air, they give birth to live young, and their spines bend up and down like ours do (not side to side like those of sharks or other fish). And like us, they are descended from four-legged land mammals. It’s quite interesting to examine the sequence of changes that resulted in them more and more adapted to living in water.

Examination of a dolphin skeleton clearly reveals our closely shared ancestry. In addition to the similar spines (vertebral columns), in their flippers, dolphins have the same bones we do in our arms. Connected to the scapula (shoulder bone) is a short humerus (arm bone), then a short radius and ulna (forearm bones), followed by the tarsals (wrist bones), metatarsals (hand bones), and phalanges (finger bones)—dolphins (and whales) have five “fingers” inside their flippers. And often tiny, vestigial hind leg bones are found buried within the animal. In fact, there was a CNN article a couple weeks ago (“Could extra dolphin fins be legs?”) discussing a dolphin with a pair of caudal fins perhaps representing the ancient hind limbs:

TOKYO, Japan (AP) — Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of hind legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land.

…

Fossil remains show dolphins and whales were four-footed land animals about 50 million years ago and share the same common ancestor as hippos and deer. Scientists believe they later transitioned to an aquatic lifestyle and their hind limbs disappeared.

Whale and dolphin fetuses also show signs of hind protrusions but these generally disappear before birth.

If you’re interested in more about this fascinating progression, artist Carl Buell has started a series of posts on cetacean evolution at his blog Olduvai George (which I noticed courtesy of Pharyngula). He’s just posted the first in the series, with a nice commentary accompanied by his excellent illustrations. Take a look!

Related posts

• Science News Update (02 Dec 2006)

Research on New Hemostatic Agent

The December issue of Scientific American mentions a new protein solution that, in animal tests, has been able to quickly stop bleeding in a way that’s fundamentally different from previous methods. The research, by Dr. Ellis-Behnke and colleagues, was published online in the journal Nanomedicine on 13 October 2006 (see abstract); the article is still in press.

It’s a solution of peptides (proteins) that is injected over the wound and stops the bleeding in seconds. It’s unclear precisely how it works; the peptides apparently self-assemble into some sort of fibrous network, different from normal blood clots (no platelets are present). No apparent toxic effects have been observed, and the gel is long-lasting. What’s especially neat is that the sustance eventually breaks down into its constituent amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, which can then be used by the body.

Obviously, research is still in the initial stages. Even if it is shown to be safe in humans, its effectiveness will have to be compared to standard methods of stopping bleeding. But it could add to our collection of hemostatic tools, potentially displacing the methods we currently use.

J. R. Minkel discusses the development in an expanded article on Scientific American’s web site. It also features a short clip demonstrating the use of the substance after making an incision in the liver of some type of rodent.