Surgeons carry out first synthetic windpipe transplant

Surgeons in Sweden have carried out the world's first synthetic organ transplant.

Scientists in London created an artificial windpipe which was then coated in stem cells from the patient.

Crucially, the technique does not need a donor, and there is no risk of the organ being rejected. The surgeons stress a windpipe can also be made within days.

The 36-year-old cancer patient is doing well a month after the operation.

Professor Paolo Macchiarini from Spain led the pioneering surgery, which took place at the Karolinska University Hospital.

In an interview with the BBC, he said he now hopes to use the technique to treat a nine-month-old child in Korea who was born with a malformed windpipe or trachea.

Professor Macchiarini already has 10 other windpipe transplants under his belt - most notably the world's first tissue-engineered tracheal transplant in 2008 on 30-year-old Spanish woman Claudia Costillo - but all required a donor.

Indistinguishable

The key to the latest technique is modelling a structure or scaffold that is an exact replica of the patient's own windpipe, removing the need for a donor organ.

To do this he enlisted the help of UK experts were given 3D scans of the 36-year-old African patient, Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene. The geology student currently lives in Iceland where he is studying for a PhD.

Using these images, the scientists at University College London were able to craft a perfect copy of Mr Beyene's trachea and two main bronchi out of glass.

They then coated this was then flown to Sweden and soaked in a solution of stem cells taken from the patient's bone marrow.

After two days, the millions of holes in the porous windpipe had been seeded with the patient' own tissue.

Dr Alex Seifalian and his team used this fragile structure to create a replacement for the patient, whose own windpipe was ravaged by an inoperable tumour.

Despite aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the cancer had grown to the size of a golf ball and was blocking his breathing. Without a transplant he would have died.

During a 12-hour operation Professor Macchiarini removed all of the tumour and the diseased windpipe and replaced it with the tailor-made replica.

The bone marrow cells and lining cells taken from his nose, which were also implanted during the operation, are able to divide and grow, turning the inert windpipe scaffold into an organ indistinguishable from a normal healthy one.

And, importantly, Mr Beyene's body will accept it as its own, meaning he will not need to take the strong anti-rejection drugs that other transplant patients have to.

Professor Macchiarini said this was the real breakthrough.

"Thanks to nanotechnology, this new branch of regenerative medicine, we are now able to produce a custom-made windpipe within two days or one week.

"This is a synthetic windpipe. The beauty of this is you can have it immediately. There is no delay. This technique does not rely on a human donation."

He said many other organs could be repaired or replaced in the same way.

A month on from his operation, Mr Beyene is still looking weak, but well.

Sitting up in his hospital bed, he said: "I was very scared, very scared about the operation. But it was live or die."

He says he is looking forward to getting back to Iceland to finish his studies and then returning to his home in Eritrea where he will be reunited with his wife and young family, and meet his new three-month-old child.

He says he is eternally grateful to the medical team that has saved his life.

News of the World to close amid hacking scandal

This Sunday's issue of the News of the World will be the last edition of the paper, News International chairman James Murdoch has said.
In the past few days, claims have been made that the paper authorised hacking into the mobile phones of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and the families of 7/7 bombing victims.

Mr Murdoch said proceeds from the last edition would go to good causes.

Downing Street said it had no role or involvement in the decision.

The News of the World is the UK's biggest selling newspaper and has been in circulation for 168 years.

No advertisements will run in this weekend's paper - instead any advertising space will be donated to charities and good causes.

News International has refused to comment on rumours that The Sun could now become a seven-day-a-week operation.

"What happens to The Sun is a matter for the future", a spokeswoman for News International said. The Sun, another News International tabloid, is currently published from Monday to Saturday.

In a statement made to staff, Mr Murdoch said the good things the News of the World did "have been sullied by behaviour that was wrong - indeed, if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company".

"The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. But it failed when it came to itself."

He went on: "In 2006, the police focused their investigations on two men. Both went to jail. But the News of the World and News International failed to get to the bottom of repeated wrongdoing that occurred without conscience or legitimate purpose.

"Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad and this was not fully understood or adequately pursued.

"As a result, the News of the World and News International wrongly maintained that these issues were confined to one reporter.

"We now have voluntarily given evidence to the police that I believe will prove that this was untrue and those who acted wrongly will have to face the consequences. This was not the only fault.

"The paper made statements to Parliament without being in the full possession of the facts. This was wrong.

"The company paid out-of-court settlements approved by me. I now know that I did not have a complete picture when I did so. This was wrong and is a matter of serious regret."

He reiterated that the company was fully co-operating with the two ongoing police investigations.

He added: "While we may never be able to make up for distress that has been caused, the right thing to do is for every penny of the circulation revenue we receive this weekend to go to organisations - many of whom are long-term friends and partners - that improve life in Britain and are devoted to treating others with dignity."

Labour MP Tom Watson told Sky News it was "a victory for decent people up and down the land, and I say good riddance to the News of the World"

Minced beef chappli kebabs

Ingredients
450g/1lb minced beef

4 tsp chickpea flour (also called gram flour or besan flour)

1 tbsp whole coriander seeds

2-3 bird's eye chillies

¾ tsp salt, or to taste

¾ tsp whole cumin seeds

6 tbsp finely chopped, peeled onion

4 tbsp fresh coriander, coarsely chopped

6 cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters

vegetable or peanut oil

To serve

naan bread

sliced onion rings

a selection of chutneys

fresh coriander leaves

Preparation method

Place the beef in a bowl.

Put the chickpea flour in a small, cast-iron frying pan and set over a medium-high heat. Stir the flour around until it turns a very light golden-brown and emits a faintly roasted smell.

Remove the pan from the heat. Allow to cool for a few seconds, then add to the bowl with the beef.

Crush or grind the coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle or in a clean coffee grinder. Add to the bowl with the beef.

Finely chop the chillies and add to the bowl.

Add the salt, cumin, chopped coriander, onion and tomatoes. Mix well and form mixture into six patties about 1cm/½in thick.

Put the oil, enough to come to a depth of 3mm/¼in, in a large frying pan set over a medium-high heat.

When hot, put in as many patties as will fit easily in a single layer and cook for about two minutes on each side or until browned then turn the heat down and cook for another two minutes or until they're cooked through. Repeat, as necessary, until all the kebabs are cooked.

Serve the kebabs hot, with naan bread, sliced onion rings, fresh coriander leaves and a selection of chutneys.

Ofcom draws up UK broadband map

An interactive map, created for the telecoms watchdog Ofcom, has revealed the state of broadband around the UK.
It shows that 68% of homes had a fixed connection with an average speed of 7.5Mbps (megabits per second).

Residents of Luton and Newtonabbey were most likely to have access to superfast broadband (over 24Mbps).

But 14% of connected households remained in the slow lane with speeds of less than 2Mbps.

The clickable map allows people to see what take-up and speed is like in their area.

"We are now developing a clear picture of the UK's fixed broadband infrastructure and how it delivers for consumers," said Ofcom's chief executive Ed Richards.

"We hope that this information will stimulate further rollout of broadband infrastructure and better performance for households and businesses."

Cash for connections

Ofcom hopes that the data will be useful to local authorities as they bid for money to bring faster services to their areas.

The government has set a target of making the UK the best place for broadband in Europe by 2015.

Both BT and Virgin are expanding their superfast broadband networks and some extra government money (£830m) has been made available to stimulate roll out to areas that might otherwise be considered not economically viable.

The map ranks each area according to four criteria:

availability of superfast broadband (defined as speed above 24Mbps
average broadband take-up
average speeds
percentage of homes with less than 2Mbps

Areas have been colour coded, with green ranking highest and red lowest.

Slow burn

Brighton and Hove had the highest take-up of broadband services with 80% of residents connected.

People in Edinburgh enjoyed the fastest average speeds of 10.1Mbps.

Northern Ireland had a high availability of superfast broadband - 97%, although there was no indication of how many people were using the faster services.

Some experts claim that take-up of fast broadband services has been slow.

Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of broadband news site ThinkBroadband believes that Ofcom should have included more data.

"The mapping of broadband take-up data is quite interesting, although I would like to see more exploration of other data sets (population age, income, etc.) which should be available as it's the correlation between these different factors which would be quite helpful in identifying trends.

More details on the reasons for lack of take-up would also be helpful," he said.

Japan nuclear 'stress test' plans criticised

Japan's plan to hold further safety tests on its nuclear plants has drawn widespread criticism, and heaped more pressure on Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

The government announced the tests just weeks after declaring that the nuclear plants were safe to restart.

Officials gave no timescale, sparking concern that the country could face power outages all year.

The 11 March earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing a review of nuclear power.

Engineers are still working to shut down the plant, where three reactors melted down and radioactive material has leaked out.

The 9.0-magnitude earthquake - the country's most powerful on record - created a massive tsunami that levelled towns along the country's north-east coast.

'Fuelling confusion'

A local mayor said he had withdrawn permission to restart a nuclear plant in his town in protest at the latest tests announced by the government.

Hideo Kishimoto, mayor of Genkai town, had consented on Monday to the plant's reactors reopening.

It was due to be the first to restart after the tsunami.

But Mr Kishimoto said of the government's announcement: "This made me feel my decision was meaningless, and I feel furious about it."

The government said it was satisfied that Japan's plants were safe, but the stress tests were designed to allay people's fears.

Two-thirds of Japan's 54 nuclear reactors are currently shut down as the government grapples with a rising tide of anti-nuclear sentiment among the public.

Prime Minister Kan has been under huge pressure over his handling of the nuclear crisis and the reconstruction of areas devastated by the tsunami and earthquake.

And critics have once again rounded on him after Wednesday's announcement of stress tests.

The announcement did not specify what the tests would entail, or how long they would take.

The Nikkei business daily said in an editorial that the announcement had "fuelled confusion".

The financial firm Goldman Sachs said in a statement that the prospect of sufficient nuclear power being available in Japan before summer peak demand was now remote.

The value of shares in Japanese energy firms fell sharply after the announcement.

Trade Minister Banri Kaieda, who had announced last month that the plants were safe to restart, said the extra tests were needed to "further increase the sense of safety".

Mr Kaieda told parliament on Thursday he would take responsibility for the confusion over the restarting of nuclear plants "when the time is right".

But he said he had no immediate plans to resign.

Waves from the tsunami caused back-up generators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant to fail, disabling reactor cooling systems and leading to meltdowns, explosions and radiation leaks.

The plant's operator Tepco has come under heavy criticism for failing to sufficiently prepare for the natural disasters.

Scientists use inkjet printing to produce solar cells

Solar energy may soon become easier to capture, say researchers who have developed a novel method to produce solar cells using inkjet printing.

Oregon State University researchers have come up with a technology similar to that commonly used to print documents and photos.

They say their method is quicker and less expensive than traditional solar cell manufacturing techniques.

It could also reduce raw material waste by 90%, they add.

As people move away from conventional combustion-type technologies, more attention is paid to renewable energy types, and solar energy is one of them.

It is known as a clean and sustainable form of energy, but this is offset by the manufacture of solar panels which is an expensive and complicated process.

Finding a balance between costs of production and efficiency could become key to future manufacture of solar cells, and many scientists around the world have been concentrating on developing new materials and methods to do that.

The recent inkjet approach is one of those novel methods.
"This is very promising and could be an important new technology to add to the solar energy field," said Professor Chih-hung Chang, the lead author of the study, which appeared in Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells journal.

"Solar energy is the most abundant and clean energy source on Earth.

"Considering the high price of petroleum and other fossil fuels, solar cells will definitely have a bright future."

Crucial issue

The team used chalcopyrite - a material composed of copper, indium, gallium and selenium and also known as CIGS. It has a much greater solar efficiency than silicon, currently used to manufacture solar panels.

The researchers then printed chalcopyrite onto the surface of the cell, applying a technique similar to a common inkjet approach, but with a special type of ink.

They managed to produce solar cells of 5% efficiency - and say that in future, they will aim to increase this figure to about 12% to make the product commercially viable.
Wei Wang, one of the scientists, told BBC News that the main advantages of the method were the ease of manufacturing and low cost.

"We produced CIGS solar cells using cheap inkjet printing under normal conditions," he said.

Also, she added, there was almost no waste in the process - unlike with a more expensive method of vapour phase deposition.

Professor Chang agreed that the waste issue was crucial.

"Some of the materials we want to work with for the most advanced solar cells, such as indium, are relatively expensive," he said.

"If that's what you're using you can't really afford to waste it, and the inkjet approach almost eliminates the waste."

Efficiency and cost

CIGS cells produced by conventional means typically have an efficiency of 15-18%, but the methods of manufacturing are known to be a lot more time-consuming, or involve expensive vacuum systems or toxic chemicals.

An alternative to CIGS is silicon panels.

"The best cells that we put on house roofs at the moment are conventional silicon cells and those have an efficiency from 20 to 25% routinely, but the manufacturing costs and materials costs are extremely high," said Dr Martyn McLachlan from Imperial College, London.

He thinks that, although it is less efficent, the cheap manufacturing costs of the inkjet approach means it is a "significant development".

"If efficiency and costs can be balanced, then lower efficiency cells become attractive," he said.

ADHD+Ink=Mistakes galore

Ever since I was a young boy in 7th grade, I have loved erasable ink pens. I never connected that love with my ADHD before, but recent evidence has shown me they’re inseparable.

When I was younger, I didn’t so much write as much as I skipped, crashed, and tumbled with a pen across the page. Somehow my attempts at cursive would drop a letter or add an extra loop depending on how distracted or excited I was at the moment. My writing was filled with crossed out mistakes as well as corrections squeezed in on the tops and sides. It was a mess.

Then Heaven sent me EraserMates. Suddenly, I could correct my constant mistakes in penmanship. I used EraserMates all through Junior High and High School. By the end of High School, however, I had switched from cursive to printed letters in all caps. It was slower, but it was also less prone to error. Even then the erasable pen was my pen of choice. I lived with the smeary ink and the blue pinky finger because I knew the trade off was worth it. I could correct my constant typos and goofs.
Mistakes G̸o̸r̸e̸ Galore
You know the kind. Complete sentences written only in your head, but somehow left off the paper. Writing music lyrics or snippets of conversation from around you accidentally into your prose. Dropped words. Complete changes of subject that ripped the readers brain in a 90° angle away from the point. My written page was an exercise in literary torture. An erasable pen was like magic for those moments. I could scrub away my mistakes and leave only a ghostly smear to mark their existence.

By the early 90s I was doing everything on computer, so programs with Autosave and Undo were my new miracles. But I still needed the ability to erase my written mistakes. When my kids entered school I tried to share my excitement with them about erasable ink, but the oldest two had no interest. Then my third daughter took to them like a viral video on Facebook . Curiously, she also had mild ADHD. She discovered she loved erasable ink for all the same reasons I did.

Fortunately for her, there is a veritable cornucopia of erasable pens on the market these days. This is a boon for you, too.