The Kidney Project successfully tests a prototype bioartificial kidney

The Kidney Project’s implantable bioartificial kidney, one that promises to free kidney disease patients from dialysis machines and transplant waiting lists, took another big step toward becoming reality, earning a $650,000 prize from KidneyX for its first-ever demonstration of a functional prototype of its implantable artificial kidney.

KidneyX is a public–private partnership between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) founded to “accelerate innovation in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of kidney diseases.”

The Kidney Project, a nationwide collaboration led by Shuvo Roy, PhD of UC San Francisco and William Fissell, MD of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), combined the two essential parts of its artificial kidney, the hemofilter and the bioreactor, and successfully implanted the smartphone-sized device for preclinical evaluation.

For this advance, the team was awarded KidneyX’s Phase 1 Artificial Kidney Prize and was one of six winning teams selected out of an international field.

A Gene-Editing Experiment Let These Patients With Vision Loss See Colour Again

Carlene Knight's vision was so bad that she couldn't even maneuver around the call center where she works using her cane.

"I was bumping into the cubicles and really scaring people that were sitting at them," says Knight, who was born with a rare genetic eye disease.

But that's changed as a result of volunteering for a landmark medical experiment. Her vision has improved enough for her to make out doorways, navigate hallways, spot objects and even see colors.

"It's nice. I don't scare people and I don't have as many bruises on my body," Knight says, laughing.

Knight is one of seven patients with a rare eye disease who volunteered to let doctors modify their DNA by injecting the revolutionary gene-editing tool CRISPR directly into cells that are still in their bodies. Knight and one other study volunteer gave NPR exclusive interviews about their experience.

This is the first time researchers worked with CRISPR this way. Earlier experiments had removed cells from patients' bodies, edited them in the lab and then infused the modified cells back into the patients.

You are looking at me, right?

Fuck that stuff is horrible. Unfit for human consumption.

I have a friend who hates cilantro with all of her core being, and has sworn bloody vengeance against it no matter the cost.

Personally, I'm not sure if I've ever had anything with cilantro in it. What is it supposed to taste like, anyhow?

-J.

You do know Google, don't you?

Coriander lovers say it has a fresh citrus taste with a strong aroma, while the haters say it has a soapy taste and a pungent smell.

The climate-driven mass extinction no one had seen before now



Sixty-three percent. That's the proportion of mammal species that vanished from Africa and the Arabian Peninsula around 30 million years ago, after Earth's climate shifted from swampy to icy. But we are only finding out about it now.

Compiling decades of work, a new study published this week in the journal Communications Biology reports on a previously undocumented extinction event that followed the transition between the geological periods called the Eocene and Oligocene.

That time period was marked by dramatic climate change. In a reverse image of what is happening today, the Earth grew cooler, ice sheets expanded, sea levels dropped, forests started changing to grasslands, and carbon dioxide became scarce. Nearly two-thirds of the species known in Europe and Asia at that time went extinct.

African mammals were thought to have possibly escaped unscathed. Africa's mild climate and proximity to the Equator could have been a buffer from the worst of that period's cooling trend.

Now, thanks in great part to a large collection of fossils housed at the Duke Lemur Center Division of Fossil Primates (DLCDFP), researchers have shown that despite their relatively balmy environment, African mammals were just as affected as those from Europe and Asia. The collection was the life's work of the late Elwyn Simons of Duke, who scoured Egyptian deserts for fossils for decades.

Scientists in Halifax have recovered a trove of research data lost on the ocean floor off Nova Scotia for 3½ years.

The remarkable retrieval includes 19 hours of video from a camera attached to a grey seal. The camera was lost in 2018 and dragged up in fishing gear this summer.