Skip to main content

Solar plane lands in New York City

A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said.  The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website.  Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...

Fully functioning lab grown kidneys work in animal

Image result for Lab-grown kidneys work in animals

Scientists say they are a step closer to growing fully functioning replacement kidneys, after promising results in animals. When transplanted into pigs and rats, the kidneys worked, passing urine just like natural ones. Getting the urine out has been a problem for earlier prototypes, causing them to balloon under the pressure. The Japanese team got round this by growing extra plumbing for the kidney to stop the backlog, PNAS reports. Although still years off human trials, the research helps guide the way towards the end goal of making organs for people, say experts. In the UK, more than 6,000 people are waiting for a kidney - but because of a shortage of donors, fewer than 3,000 transplants are carried out each year.

More than 350 people die a year, almost one a day, waiting for a 
Image result for Lab-grown kidneys work in animals
transplant. Lab-grown kidneys using human stem cells could solve this problem. Scientists say they are a step closer to growing fully functioning replacement kidneys, after promising results in animals. When transplanted into pigs and rats, the kidneys worked, passing urine just like natural ones. Getting the urine out has been a problem for earlier prototypes, causing them to balloon under the pressure. The Japanese team got round this by growing extra plumbing for the kidney to stop the backlog, PNAS reports.

Although still years off human trials, the research helps guide the way towards the end goal of making organs for people, say experts. In the UK, more than 6,000 people are waiting for a kidney - but because of a shortage of donors, fewer than 3,000 transplants are carried out each year. More than 350 people die a year, almost one a day, waiting for a transplant. Lab-grown kidneys using human stem cells could solve this problem.

Comments