Scientists are turning urine into brain cells

A group of scientists report that they can turn urine into brain cells. Let that stew for a second. Crazy, right? Researchers published their findings in Nature Methods after successfully taking some of the cells expelled from the body and turning them into neurons. They take kidney epithelial cells, put them in the right type of conditions and—POOF!—12 days later they've got pluripotent stem cells, which can be grown into any type of human tissue. The folks at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health in China injected the neurons into the brains of rats and they behaved exactly how they expected. Plus, no tumors. But, we still can't teleport, so the future is still a sham. [Gizmodo]