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The placenta's second life

Author(s)
Glausser, Anne O. (Anne O'Brien)
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing.
Advisor
Alan Lightman.
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M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
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Abstract
This thesis, written for a popular audience, explores the many facets of the placenta, an organ that facilitates the growth of the fetus during pregnancy. It looks at what happens when the placenta dodges the hospital incinerator-taking on a second purpose, a second life. Once the placenta is expelled during the third stage of labor, once it has served its role in the body and is facing retirement, it can take on whole new forms of usefulness. Humans, artful at manipulating the materials of life, have created new-and often controversial-purposes for this discard tissue after it has served its primary role: expelled placenta is used in eye surgery, in training dogs to sniff dead bodies, in toxicology research, in forensics, in cosmetics, and, most significantly, in an emerging field of stem cell research. From ritual use to research subject to health treatment, we have taken the placenta from the realm of the dead and given it new vigor.
Description
Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2009.
 
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
 
Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-42).
 
Date issued
2009
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/54572
Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing; MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keywords
Graduate Program in Science Writing.

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