Bird Pinkerton

So do you know what a stem cell is?

Okay, so a stem cell is like the...

the really basic cells that then develop into other tissues.

So they're kind of like a jack-of-all-trades flexible cells.

They can turn into any kind of cell.

So you can basically imagine like the fetus has these flexible cells, right?

And then some of those cells travel into the placenta, which Amy was telling me is kind of like the main connector between the fetus and the parent.

It's this super highway.

So the fetus's cells sort of travel along this highway into the parent's body, hitching a ride in the circulatory system probably, right?

And they finish their road trip eventually in the heart, say, or the lungs or the brain, sort of all over the body.

And then they can reshape themselves into a heart cell or a lung cell or a brain cell, whatever they're around, and kind of braid themselves into that tissue.

So they're doing work in the parent's body, even though genetically they're different from the cells around them.

So starting around the 1990s, these researchers were sort of like,

All right.

Like, what is going on here?

Like, if these cells are sticking around and becoming part of the body, are they affecting it in some way?

Like, what are they doing?

We don't know.

But we have some ideas.

First of all, Amy told me that it is very possible that