Solved cryptogram
Heart muscle sets its own rhythm. A heart removed from the body will go on beating by itself.
Biology Facts, sourced to NHLBI.
What it means
A patch of specialized tissue called the sinoatrial node fires spontaneously and paces the rest of the muscle, so the signal originates in the heart rather than arriving from the brain. Nerves adjust the rate up or down to suit the situation, but they do not start it. This is why a donor heart begins beating again once it is warmed and supplied with blood.
The claim comes from NHLBI, and the page it comes from was read on 2026-08-27 to confirm it still says this.
This is not the kind of claim that goes out of date, which is why it was set as a puzzle rather than a fact with a shelf life.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 74 letters over 20 different ones, graded medium.
- SourceNHLBI
- CollectionBiology Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length74 letters, 20 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- NIDCDeasy, 74 letters
- NIDDKhard, 74 letters
- NHLBIhard, 75 letters
- MedlinePluseasy, 72 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- National Eye Institutemedium, 73 letters
- MedlinePlusmedium, 69 letters
- National Eye Institutemedium, 72 letters
- MedlinePlusmedium, 68 letters