Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America.

I'm Katie Weaver.

And I'm Mario Ritter Jr.

This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower and we use words and phrases,

especially written for people learning English. On today's program, Anna Mateo tells about a project

aiming to map all the cells of the human body.

I have a story about a mysterious Argentinian animal making a home in Dubai.

John Russell presents the science report on new space research.

Then, The Lesson of the day. But first,

researchers have created an early version of a map of some of the human body's cells.

The human body has an estimated 37.2 trillion cells.

Each type of cell has a unique job.

Knowing each cell's job can help scientists better understand health and diseases such as cancer.

The work is part of the Human Cell Atlas Project.

The effort began in 2016.

It involves researchers around the world.

The group, called a consortium, plans to release a more complete

Atlas in 26 by mapping cells from 18 organs and body systems. These include the skin,

heart, and breasts. Some of the skin, heart, and breasts.

Some of the researchers published their findings on bone development in embryos.

The study appeared in Nature on November 20th.

Aviv Regev is a founding co-chair of the project.

...