Evolution has favoured cockroaches above human beings, at least when it comes to the functioning of the heart. A cockroach's heart will continue to beat even when one of its chambers has failed; in similar circumstances, a man will die. Now a team led by Sujoy Guha of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, has created an artificial human heart based on a cockroach's, which they believe will be unusually robust and affordable.rnA cockroach's heart is a tube that runs the length of its body. It has 13 chambers, linked like a string of sausages. As each chamber contracts, the blood within is pumped to a higher pressure. Each successive chamber increases the pressure. A human heart, by contrast, has four chambers. Two of these pump blood to the lungs, where it picks up oxygen, then the other two pump this oxygenated blood throughout the body. One of these four cham-bers-the left ventricle-contracts most strongly to pressurise the blood.
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