Wow, way to read into my post, dude.
Something most Slashdotters probably know is that science journalism is very derivative. Since a lot of journalists don't know squat about science, most of them just end up regurgitating stuff. Sometimes random irrelevant facts are added, sometimes important information is stripped out. Mentioning that both hearts are from sows without mentioning why seems strange. There could be a reason why, or it could have just been an extraneous fact that was included..
Now, the sentence from TFA ("Thatte and his group harvested two female pig hearts and placed them in two different containers.") is very similar to a sentence in a cited source here ("The researchers harvested hearts from female pigs, stored them in one of the two solutions, then biopsied them at several points over the next four hours.") Was there an original story somewhere that said why sow hearts were preferable, or was it just a random detail that someone added without context? Unfortunately, I can't access what appears to be the original paper at the moment to find out either way.
I have been paid to work in a research lab. I have also been paid to work for a newspaper. The interaction between science and the media fascinates me. And in my experience, there's a lot of truth to this comic.
Why would the gender of the heart donors matter?
The question is, why wouldn't it? Do you know? I don't.
Yeah, I'm hoping for a response from someone who does know. Thanks for making gross, incorrect assumptions about me, though.