• Surgery on a 16-year-old Japanese girl, reported in January by New Scientist, revealed that her ovary contained a miniature skull and brain. Doctors say that finding rogue brain cells in ovaries is not that uncommon, but that an already-organized brain, capable of transmitting electric impulses, is almost unheard-of. [New Scientist, 1-6-2017]
• The neonatal intensive care unit of Texas Health Fort Worth disclosed in January that the secret to keeping the most fragile prematurely born babies alive is to quickly stick them into Ziploc freezer bags to create, according to a clinician, a "hot house effect." (It turns out that merely raising the temperature in the delivery room had only marginal effect.) [KXAS-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth), 1-11-2017]