Thread by @FondOfBeetles

@LucyHunterB Oh golly, it's really cool.

@LucyHunterB So first, what a thing to happen, let alone to find fetal cells in the brain tissue of females decades after they give birth!

Initial studies focussed on females who had carried male babies - it's possible to discriminate the male cells against the female tissue background.

@LucyHunterB Female babies also kick out cells into Mum. Just harder to find them.

This is not even the coolest part yet....

@LucyHunterB If you study this phenomenon in rodents, you can label fetal cells with a "colour", so you can detect exactly where they colonise Mum and how long they last.

And it's still not the coolest part....

@LucyHunterB Note: The following is a horrible experiment so people who object to animal research, look away now.

If you induce a heart attack in a (rodent) pregnant Mum, you can find large numbers of these fetal cells clustering around the damaged area....

@LucyHunterB ....where they start changing into healthy heart tissue.

@LucyHunterB Fetal cells from the placenta are pretty "stem cell" like, and that means they can change into lots of different tissue types.

Babies might keep their Mums alive.

@LucyHunterB But there's more, albeit speculative the last time I looked.

This shot of stem cells in adulthood might underpin some of the reason that females live longer.

@LucyHunterB I'd never heard of this until a brilliant undergrad student in one of my PBLs brought it up (and gave a perfect, five minute lecture to the rest of the group).

My jaw was dragging. He got great marks ;)

@LucyHunterB I have to say...

Developmental biologists have the privilege of seeing pr learning about so many amazing things in the course of their careers, but this is a strong contender for "Best Ever".