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K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

The Electric Heart

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eheart/

Provider: PBS


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This companion website to the NOVA program Electric Heart, “tells the story of a handful of brilliant, obsessed surgeons and researchers who have pursued the target of a practical artificial heart for decades. Here’s what you’ll find online:

  • Map of the Human Heart. Put your finger on the pulse of how the human heart works with an automatically changing color graphic of a heart in cross-section.
  • Amazing Heart Facts. Did you know that, on any given day, your heart beats roughly 100,000 times and your blood travels about 12,000 miles as it circulates throughout your body? Find more dazzling details here.
  • The Artificial Human. Merely a good idea for a TV show a quarter century ago, the $6 Million Man - or woman - could practically exist today, with everything from hips of steel to laboratory-grown skin regularly replacing what nature originally provided. Meet our fake friend.
  • Pioneering Surgeon: O. H. Frazier. O. H. Frazier has done more heart transplants than anyone else alive, well over 700. He also stands at the forefront of researchers striving to create a viable total artificial heart. Here he talks about his work, his thoughts, and his hopes.
  • Operation: Heart Transplant. Don your surgical mask and try your hand as a heart-transplant surgeon - metaphorically speaking - in this simplified online procedure.”

This website also contains additional resources for further information on the human heart.