Prosecutors say Kermit Gosnell, 72, killed babies by using scissors to cut their spinal cords.

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In 1990 he and colleagues gave this antibody to rats with severed spinal cords.

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Once again, the rats were placed on the treadmill, in the harness, and their spinal cords were tickled by the stimulator.

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For nearly a century after Louis Pasteur invented it in 1885, the rabies vaccine was made from ground-up animal brains and spinal cords.

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Under the influence of these grafted cells, cut spinal cords can regrow and bridge the gap which stops them sending signals down the line.

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Shortly after the injection their spinal cords were stimulated with electrodes.

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This first experiment, however, had engaged only the animals' spinal cords.

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Their spinal cords, in other words, had learnt to recognise nerve signals coming from their leg muscles and to generate appropriate outgoing signals to keep the movement going.

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But it would not likely have spread the disease, since USDA regulations prohibit high-risk parts of the cow, such as brains and spinal cords, from entering the food chain.

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Five years after Parliament agreed suspect cattle parts (brains, spinal cords and other offal) should be kept out of the human food chain, beef carcasses ready for the butchers' shops were found with the offal still in place.

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At the University of Florida, in Gainesville, Douglas Anderson and Paul Reier are gearing up to transplant fetal spinal cord into patients whose own cords have been crushed, as happens in over two-thirds of all spinal injuries.

ECONOMIST: Something new in mind