Health Issue: SHORT CUTS

SHORT CUTS


Human livers to be grown 
in lab in 5 years?


   In what could be called a major breakthrough, scientists have developed a new technique which they claim could allow the growth of livers in the laboratyory for transplantation into humans within five years. A team at Massachusetts General Hospital has developed the technique which works by effectively chemically stripping the old liver down too its basic"scaffold" or exoskeleton in a process called "decellularisation". Onto this frame of connective tissue and blood vessels, the new liver is then regrown using stem cells from the patient. Stem cells from embryos could also be used. The brand new liver is then transplanted back into the patient.


Space probe finds unique asteroid dust:
  A Japanese space probe has landed in the Australian outroid, safely returning a capsule containing a unique sample of dust. The Hayabusa probe blazed a spectacular trail over Australia before slamming into the desert at around midnight local time, ending a journey to the near-Earth asteroid itokawa that began in 2003. The first image available indicated the capsule carrying the precious cargo had survived.