Now, a heart simulator that replicates the complicated movements and functions of a real human heart has been created. The University of New South Wales researchers are behind this development.

Over the past decade, however, medical schools have been experimenting with ways of teaching anatomy without the body, supplementing or replacing real cadavers with virtual ones.

These are seeded with live human cardiomyocytes (heart muscle cells). As those cells expand and contract in unison, the flexible scaffold moves with them, pumping water through the miniPUMP.

In 2008, Taylor found real success when she and the team at the University of Minnesota rid a rat’s heart of cells and started working with the translucent skeleton left behind.

It turns out that the classic red heart symbol we see almost everywhere around Valentine's Day doesn't look much like a real human heart at all. "Of all the theories about where that symbol comes ...