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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...
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Scientists kept a pig heart alive in a baboon for more than two years

The result could boost hopes for the successful transplantation of animal organs into people, amid a shortage of human donors.  Cross-species transplants provoke a powerful immune reaction, leading to rejection of the organ by the host.  But a US-German team used a combination of gene modification and immune-suppressing drugs.  Their work is described in the journal Nature Communications.  "It is very significant because it brings us one step closer to using these organs in humans," co-author Muhammad Mohiuddin, from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Maryland, told the AFP news agency. "Xenotransplants - organ transplants between different species - could potentially save thousands of lives each year that are lost due to a shortage of human organs for transplantation." Dr Mohiuddin and colleagues used a previously established line of donor pigs with three genetic modifications that allowed for a degree of immune tolerance in recipient ba...
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A gene-editing method can make pig organs suitable for use in people, scientists say

Prof George Church and colleagues used a technique called Crispr to alter the DNA of pig cells to create a better match for humans.  The early work, in the journal Science, aims to address concerns about rejection and infection by viruses embedded in pig DNA.  If successful, it could be an answer to the shortage of human donor organs.  Years more research is needed before genetically modified pigs could be bred to grow organs for people. Gene editing Crispr is a relatively new scientific tool that lets scientists snip and  play around with the code of life - DNA.  Prof Church, from Harvard University, used it to inactivate a retrovirus present in the pig cell line.This porcine endogenous retrovirus is potentially risky because it can infect human cells - at least in the lab.  In tests on early pig embryos, Prof Church was able to eliminate all 62 copies of porcine endogenous retroviruses from the pig cells using Crispr.  Next, he checked i...
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Fully functioning lab grown kidneys work in animal

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.  Scientists say they are a step closer to growing fully functioning ...
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