2026-09-18T19:30:10Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/545722026-06-06T01:05:53Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
Alan Lightman.
Glausser, Anne O. (Anne O'Brien)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing
MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies
2010-04-28T17:03:28Z
2010-04-28T17:03:28Z
2009
2009
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/54572
567779304
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).
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.
by Anne O. Glausser.
S.M. in Science Writing
42 p.
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M.I.T. theses are protected by
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http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Graduate Program in Science Writing.
The placenta's second life
Thesis
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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.</Abstract>
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