The Ed's Up #56

A Personalised Mini-Stomach, Grown in a Dish

"In a lab at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, a series of small blobs sit in a Petri dish. They’re white, hollow, and the size of small peas. They are stomachs. More precisely, they are lab-grown model stomachs. Graduate student Kyle McCracken worked out how to make them by coaxing stem cells into producing stomach tissue—a feat that no one had yet managed. The results look like simple baubles, but the growing cells somehow organise themselves into the classic architecture of an actual stomach." (Image: Kyle McCracken)
 

The Early Chimp Gets The Fig

"Fruit-eating is like a game of chess, in which the pieces do not only change position but also continuously change their state. She has also found that wild chimps are masters of this game. They get up earlier in the morning, often before the sun’s first rays, if they plan on eating short-lived fruits like figs. And they build the previous night’s nests in the direction of these trees, so they can get a headstart on any competitors. (Image: Afrika Force)
 

T(ED) Talk

My TED talk on mind-controlling parasites passed a million views last week! Thanks to everyone who watched it.

More good reads

• One of the best things I've read about Ebola for ages, from Maryn McKenna. She considers what would happen if it became endemic. Carl Zimmer clearly explains why, unlike the flu, Ebola isn't airborne
• "She emailed a photo to a world-renowned tadpole expert who was so excited he formatted his reply in ALL CAPS." Matt Simon on the vampire frog.
• “My body was a foreign object that I propelled thru the world & that housed my brain, where I lived” A wonderful essay by Veronique Greenwood.
• The Ebola Survivors Club. They are immune but they care for sick and orphaned.
• Why is the Mona Lisa so popular? Ian Leslie on how canons form.
• "Imagine, for a moment, a world with three suns". Nadia Drake helps you.  
• “If mega-rich people could buy places on clinical trials, would this help drive forward the development of new treatments that could benefit everyone?” Alexander Masters considers the case.
• "Yesterday, before I got here, my dad was trying to fix an invisible machine." A perfect short tale by Vaughan Bell

More good links will be released in tomorrow's linkfest on Not Exactly Rocket Science.

You can also follow me on Twitter, find regular writing on my blog. If someone has forwarded this email to you, you can sign up yourself.

And that's it! Thanks for reading.

-Ed