To confirm or rule it out, a further test is offered - either amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling, both of which use a fine needle to take tissue or fluid from inside the womb.

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Oklahoma State Senator Ralph Shortey is being widely mocked for a bill to ban the use of human embryonic tissue in the production or research of food.

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To activate the altered neurons, they usually use a laser tuned to the proper wavelength and pipe the beam through a fiber-optic cable implanted in the brain tissue.

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He next plans to use lab-made tissue and see if he can successfully treat a degenerative, blindness-causing eye disease in monkeys.

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"There's definitely a performance-enhancing effect if you use things that improve oxygen transport to the tissue, " says Larry Bowers, an expert on athletic drug testing and senior managing director of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

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One of their programs displays stretches of DNA in a three-dimensional color format that a customer can use, for example, to pinpoint the genetic differences between healthy and cancerous prostate tissue.

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Lab-grown tissue has the potential to transform medicine, though it is still a long way from routine clinical use.

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