Quest to build a heart gets lift from jellyfish – Boston.com

Quest to build a heart gets lift from jellyfish – Boston.com.

This is a great article describing how researchers at Harvard and Cal Tech, inspired by the movements of jellyfish, created a “pseudo-organism” using rat heart cells seeded onto an eight-lobed silica polymer.  The resulting “Medusoid” responds to electrical stimuli and can propel itself by pumping, similar to the jellyfish.  The work provides a foundation for  building other artificial pumps, perhaps even a heart-like structure.  Once again, Nature is shown to be an extraordinary engineer!