MACHINE KEEPS UTERUS ALIVE, “MOTHER” BUT FORGET THE MOM
Scientists used a machine deployed in organ transplant medicine to keep a surgically removed human uterus alive for one day, furthering the goal of being able to use donated uteri experimentally over long periods of time, including for gestation. From the MIT Technology story:
The team members want to keep donated human uteruses alive long enough to see a full menstrual cycle. They hope this will help them study diseases of the uterus and learn more about how embryos burrow their way into the organ’s lining at the start of a pregnancy. They also hope that future iterations of their device might one day sustain the full gestation of a human fetus.
In a plot twist that sounds like a sci-fi pilot episode pitched by a committee obsessed with acronyms, scientists have managed to keep a human uterus ticking outside the body for a whole day using a machine gloriously named PUPER (because why not?), or affectionately dubbed “Mother” — which is less a tender tribute and more “treating an organ like a coffee maker.” The grand ambition: to watch a full menstrual cycle or maybe even grow a fetus in a glorified uterus incubator someday, sidestepping the messy drama of actual motherhood, who needs that emotional tangled web anyway? This merging of high-tech gadgetry and reproductive biology is less about honoring motherhood and more about making IVF failures less common by poking embryo implantation under the lens of cold scientific curiosity, proving once again that when it comes to human reproduction, nothing says progress like shrinking the miracle of life down to a bureaucratic problem waiting for a firmware update.
Atkins got his first guitar by making a trade with his brother, and it was arguably the best deal he ever made. Although he struggled with shyness and suffered from severe asthma—he had to sleep sitting up and often fell asleep still holding his guitar—he became an accomplished guitarist and went on to release several hit records, develop a signature line of guitars, and help create country music's "Nashville sound." What did "Mr. Guitar," as he came to be known, trade to get that first guitar?
West Virginia Day is a state holiday in
Excluding water, tea is the most widely consumed drink on the planet, drunk either hot or cold by half the world's population. The vast majority of tea sold in the West is black tea, made from fermented leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. Generally stronger in flavor and more caffeinated than the green and oolong varieties, black tea retains its flavor for several years and has long been an article of trade, serving as a form of currency into the 19th century in what countries?
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