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Tech NewsThe Segway’s Inventor Wants to Mass-Produce Human Organs—Yes, You Read That Right
You remember the Segway, the two-wheeled device that required a gymnastics-level of balance to ride standing upright? Its inventor is currently working on an incredibly ambitious project to create a massive lab for growing human organs—once the FDA approves lab-grown organs for human transplant, of course. There’s still a long way to go research-wise, but … Continued
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Tech NewsTech PolicyTwitter Ran Ads for Human Organs Because Money Is Money
Aside from pockets of overt racism, one of the more weirdly unpleasant corners of Twitter comes from its “promoted” content. What ostensibly started as a tool for big-name brands to drive the “reach” and “impact” of whatever message they might be promoting, it’s since devolved into another kind of marketing tool that’s just kind of…. … Continued
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ScienceHealthA 99-Year-Old Woman Lived and Died Without Ever Knowing Her Organs Were in the Wrong Places
A 99-year-old woman in Oregon lived a long life with one of the world’s rarest and often fatal conditions: a body in which most of her major organs were on the wrong side. Even more amazingly, the woman remained blissfully unaware of her unusual predicament. It was only after medical students and their professor got … Continued
By Ed Cara -
Tech NewsWhat’s the Least Useful Body Part?
We’re all familiar with the flashy, big-ticket organs: the heart, the brain, the lungs. Their celebrity often obscures the work—humbler, less heroic, but often no less essential to the maintenance of a life—performed by those organs only doctors know about: the body’s back-up players, pulsing and pumping in relative obscurity. Not to mention the mid-tier … Continued
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ScienceHealthIn World First, Woman Gives Birth After Receiving Uterus Transplant from Dead Donor
A team of doctors in Brazil have announced a medical first that could someday help countless women unable to have children because of a damaged or absent uterus. In a case report published Tuesday in the Lancet, they claim to have successfully helped a woman give birth using a transplanted uterus from a deceased donor. … Continued
By Ed Cara -
Tech NewsSploidMan Redefines Horror By Building a Singing Furby Organ
As if the fear of a looming nuclear war wasn’t enough, Sam Battle, the hacker-musician behind the YouTube channel Look Mum No Computer, hacked together 44 Furby toys to build the world’s first (and hopefully last) singing Furby organ, introducing a whole new element to your nightmares. On a technical level, Battle’s Furby Organ is certainly … Continued
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Tech News
Scientists Make a Crazy Breakthrough in Cryopreserving Organs
Transplants aren’t as easy as heading to the organ bank and using your organ card to withdraw an organ from the organ ATM. It’s more like an economy where every time you needed gold, you had to wait for someone to donate or bequeath it to you. Today, the line for gold is almost 80,000 … Continued
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Tech News
Human-Pig Chimeras Suggest a Long Road to Organ Farming
Several dozen embryos sat in a lab that seemed straight out of a David Lynch film—part pig, part human. It’s just the first step in a strange journey that may one day lead to a new way to grow and harvest human organs. Human organs are a scarce commodity, and almost 80,000 people are currently … Continued
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Tech News
Ridiculous Rat-Grown Mouse Organ Transplant Cures Diabetic Mice
It’s a beautiful tale of graciousness and sacrifice. Hopeless, drug-addled mice, suddenly stricken with diabetes, are offered a cure at the mercy of their all-knowing scientist overlords. Their rat-tailed comrades miraculously grew functioning mouse pancreases and the higher power, blessed be, healed the mice with the bounty. Amen! Or at least, that’s how a bunch … Continued
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Tech NewsSploidLearning About Animal Genitalia Is Really Fascinating Stuff
Meet Patty Brennan, she has one of the most interesting jobs that anyone could possibly ever have because she’s an evolutionary biologist who studies the genital structures of sharks, birds, snakes, and more. Basically, she finds out how animals bone by dissecting them, making silicon molds, creating 3D models, looking at them under microscope, and … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech News
Your Appendix May Not Be as Useless as You Think
New research suggests that the appendix, long believed to be a throwback to our evolutionary past, may serve an important purpose by boosting immunity and acting as a “safe house” for helpful gut bacteria. The appendix is an organ that has confounded scientists for centuries. The eminent evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin speculated that our distant … Continued
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ScienceHealth
We’re One Step Closer to Growing Human Organs Inside of Pigs
In an effort to tackle the organ donor shortage, researchers in the United States have successfully created part-human, part-pig embryos and implanted them into a sow. Eventually, these animals could act as incubators for human organs, which concerns some ethicists. As reported by the BBC, researchers from the University of California, Davis, injected human stem … Continued
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Tech News
Scientists Want to Transplant Genetically Modified Pig Organs Into Humans
In news that sounds straight out of a dystopian Margaret Atwood novel, surgeons managed to keep a genetically modified pig heart alive inside a baboon for 945 days before it failed last month. “Xenotransplantation” experiments like this may one day lead to doctors raising pigs for organ transplants. The recent GM-pig-heart-in-a-baboon transplant bests the previous … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
This Heart-on-a-Chip Beats Like the Real Thing
Though it may not look at all like the muscle in your chest, this heart-on-a-chip can beat like the real thing. A blend of microfluidics and biological cells, the device will be used as a more efficient means of testing for drug toxicity. Developed by a team of bioengineers form University of California, Berkeley, the … Continued
