When surgeons removed a 33-year-old woman's right lung as part of her cancer treatment in 1995, they expected a dramatic and permanent reduction in her breathing power. But that's not what happened. Instead, her remaining lung pulled off a trick that scientists had long thought impossible in humans: it grew new tissue, and lots of it. Over the next 15 years, her left lung compensated for the loss of its partner by nearly doubling in volume and growing millions of new air sacs, called alveoli.
After authoring seven best-selling works of nonfiction based around the sciences, it's safe to say Mary Roach knows a thing or two. Her books have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, have been lauded by Barnes & Noble and Entertainment Weekly, and in 2012, she received the Harvard Secular Society's Rushdie Award for a lifetime achievement in cultural humanism.
"Emotionally, it stings," said Whited, associate professor in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, fighting back tears. "It feels very personal. It took me 19 years to build this axolotl colony and research program with a goal to ultimately help human lives. It couldn't have come at a worse time."
Such political entities, governed by a singular unelected leader, drag millions of people along for the ride, often to the benefit of only a small ruling class (and the exploitation of the masses). In Empire of AI, journalist Karen Hao makes a bold but simple claim: the AI companies intricately woven into our digital lives are de facto empires, and it takes keen senses to sort their powerful leaders' self-aggrandizing promises from the realistic implications of the technology.
"Dancing molecules," the promising new treatment for acute spinal cord injuries developed at Northwestern University, has received Orphan Drug Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
"The new institute will advance the development of medical tools that empower the human body to heal, focusing on the regeneration or reconstruction of various tissues and organs."