For years, engineers have been using computer visualizations of simulated flow data to better understand how fluid moves around and through complex mechanical assemblies and how that flow affects and is affected by structural design characteristics. Now, one of the most complex natural assemblies—the human heart—is bene-fitting from the same visual insight. Cardiologist Ann Bolger at the University of California at San Francisco, with the help of research colleagues at Sweden's Linkoping University, is using traditional engineering-visualization software to obtain unprecedented perspectives on the movement of blood within the human heart-information that puts into question long-held notions of fundamental heart physiology.
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