Tech

Pig heart transplanted to human for the first time

Enlarge / The transplant team with the replacement heart. (credit: The transplant team with the replacement heart. ) On Monday, the University of Maryland School of Medicine announced that its staff had done the first transplant of a pig’s heart into a human. The patient who received it had end-stage heart disease and was too […]

Tech

Jurassic-period ammonite fossils flex their muscles in virtual 3D

Enlarge (credit: Lesley Cherns et al.) Researchers created a highly detailed 3D model of a 365-million-year-old ammonite fossil from the Jurassic period by combining advanced imaging techniques, revealing internal muscles that have never been previously observed, according to a paper published last month in the journal Geology. Another paper published last month in the journal […]

Tech

Researchers built a gecko-bot to study how geckos glide and crash land

Enlarge / A gecko perches on a leaf. A September study found that geckos are very good gliders, and their tails help stabilize them when they crash-land into tree trunks. (credit: MPI for Intelligent Systems) There’s rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we’re once again […]

Tech

Could we build a synthetic digestive system for Vision to make him more human?

Enlarge / The birth of Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Scientists have proposed a possible artificial digestive system for the synthezoid, although new technologies must be developed to make it a reality. (credit: Marvel Studios) There’s rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we’re once […]

Tech

Tiny tardigrades walk like insects 500, 000 times their size

Enlarge / SEM Micrograph of a tardigrade, more commonly known as a water bear or “moss piglet. ” (credit: Cultura RM Exclusive/Gregory S. Paulson/Getty Images) There’s rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we’re once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, […]

Tech

Smokers gave a home to bacteria that now sicken people with cystic fibrosis

Enlarge (credit: Peter Dazeley / Getty Images ) Smoking can really clog up the lungs, even for people who’ve never been near a cigarette. Turns out that smoking habits from the early 1900s are still inflicting damage—not on tobacco users or their families, but on people with cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a hereditary […]

COVID 19 Tech

Vaccine trial finds a glitch with children in one age range

Enlarge (credit: Reshi Irshad / Getty Images ) On Friday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their latest vaccine trial was showing some odd results in children within a specific age range. Children in the 2- to 5-year age group didn’t produce as strong of an antibody response to the particular vaccine as older and younger […]

Tech

You asked. Ars answers. Here’s how to give an electric eel an MRI

Enlarge / Veterinarians at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium have pioneered a lot of unusual procedures to diagnosis and treat the animals in their care—including figuring out to give MRIs to electric eels. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) Right before Thanksgiving, we reported on how Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium solved the Curious Case of the Missing Chloroquine. […]

Tech

Interesting research, but no, we don’t have living, reproducing robots

Enlarge / The crescent-shaped balls of cells would travel in circles, piling up cells that could grow into mobile clusters. (credit: Sam Kriegman and Douglas Blackiston) Scientists on Monday announced that they’d optimized a way of getting mobile clusters of cells to organize other cells into smaller clusters that, under the right conditions, could be […]

Tech

Why Omicron quickly became a variant of concern

Enlarge / That’s a lot of mutations. (credit: Stanford ) On Friday, the World Health Organization officially named a new version of the particular SARS-CoV-2 virus a variant associated with concern, and attached the Greek letter omicron to the designation. The Omicron variant is notable for the sheer number regarding mutations in the spike protein […]