This artificial heart is based on a cockroach heart. Seems that a cockroach has a twelve chambered heart compared to our four chambered heart. This built in redundancy helps to protect them from keeling over with angina as they are about to invade my pantry.
I was trying to figure out how this worked from the picture and it made no sense to me. The picture looks like a tennis ball with an aquarium pump inside of it. So, I went looking on the web for a diagram of a cockroach heart. I was unable to find a clear picture or diagram of the little critters ticker. I did eventually find this diagram of a insect heart that I think is similar to what you might find inside a cockroach. Still not clear to me how they can survive the failure of one chamber when they are in sequence like this?
Shoot me a note if anybody knows of a better diagram, picture or explanation.
[via dvice]
[Image of artifical heart captured from dvice: http://dvice.com/archives/2009/06/indian-artifici.php] [Two images of insect heart captured from mathphysicschemistrybiology.com/
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