FROM THE EDITOR
COVER: JOE WALDRON THIS PAGE: GETTY IMAGES X2, BBC STUDIOS, JESS LEE
I once saw someone’s beating heart. Don’t worry, the story isn’t as grisly as it sounds. It was an ultrasound scan (also known as an echocardiogram): a video in black and white of my gran’s heart. She had a leaky valve, which meant blood didn’t always move around the chambers in one direction, as it should. Instead, each time the muscle relaxed, a flap in the heart wouldn’t close tightly enough and blood would flow backwards.
The visual of a beating heart, on that screen, squeezing blood from one chamber into another, was probably one of the best biology lessons I had ever had. The textbook version of a heart, flat and motionless, didn’t really equip me with me with a proper understanding of how it worked. This did.