Biologists grow beating heart cells from mice cells

Using a combination of science and magic, I'm sure, biologists in La Jolla, CA have transmogrified connective tissue cells into heart cells that can actually beat. They still aren't sure if the cells being created are cancerous in some way or can be transplanted, nor are they sure if their new discovery will survive long enough in a host body to be considered. Still, kudos.

They have achieved this by changing the connective tissue cells back into Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, or iPSC. Instead of going a step further to change them into full-blown stem cells, they treated their payload with a complex set of chemicals known to change stem cells into cardiac cells. It worked! What's more, it only took 11-12 days for this to take place, with a yield of up to 90% of the original cells transforming.

For more details, click the link:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/01/heart-cells-created-mouse/1#.T0vx0fEgdbE