HEALTHCARE: BiVACOR’s Total Artificial Heart keeps heart failure patients alive until a donor heart is available

Friday, March 14, 2025

FROM 1440 https://join1440.com/

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Heart of Steel Titanium

An Australian man in his 40s lived for a record 105 days with a titanium heart before receiving a donor heart transplant March 6. Though five patients in the US had previously been implanted with BiVACOR’s Total Artificial Heart, he is the first to be discharged from the hospital with the device and has the longest survival period between implantation and transplantation.

The device uses magnetic levitation technology—like that used in high-speed trains—to suspend a single moving part, a rotor, which pumps blood through the body. An external system controls the device, adjusting blood flow based on the patient’s activity. Experts say it could be a solution for heart failure patients awaiting transplants and may become a permanent option for those ineligible for transplants due to age or other conditions, though further testing is required.

Approximately 6.7 million Americans over age 20 have heart failure, and around 4,600 heart transplants were performed in 2024. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved expanding the trial to include 15 more participants. 

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Now that is a real boon to people whose heart is on its way to failure.  And death.

Soon maybe they won’t need donors or pigs.

Amazing.

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ENCOURAGING: Demonstration project shows improved yields, diversified crops, and boosted incomes

Friday, March 14, 2025

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/degraded-lands-transformed-into-productive-farms-with-science-we-can-create-wonders/

Degraded Lands Transformed into Productive Farms: With Science, We Can Create Wonders
By Andy Corbley – Mar 3, 202

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In a degraded and semi-arid farming area in India, simple science-driven changes to the landscape have colored the horizon, and a village’s fortunes, with green.

In the Latur district in the central western state of Maharashtra, 40 years of erratic rainfall, groundwater depletion, soil erosion, and crop failures have impoverished the local people.

In the village of Matephal, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) launched a project in 2023 that aimed at addressing these challenges through integrated landscape management and climate-smart farming practices.

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“This ICRISAT project improved yields, diversified crops, and boosted incomes. It also spared women from walking over a kilometer for drinking water, now available in the village for people and animals,” said Mr. Govind Hinge of Matephal village.

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Pretty amazing results.  Went from “dirt poor” with no water to abundant water and good soil.  

Unfortunately, the author doesn’t itemize the capital investment that went into creating this miracle.  While obviously significant, far beyond what a poor village could afford, one wonders what the ROI would be?  For example, the 30 tons of fish harvested might be a source of capital.  A 13 foot rise in the water table might be economically exploitable.  The extra acreage that become productive might be a source of capital to be used.

I wonder if the world’s engineering schools could be an educational resource?  Imagine instead of funding football teams with expansive coaches, Universities could complete for whose intervention produces the most results.  Funny?  No fill the stadium with two equally sized plots and see which produced the best tomatoes.  Yeah, now that is exciting. 

Listen to the 4 minute video and see if you’re not as impressed as I am. 

Interesting to me is that this intervention made a permanent positive change in peoples’ lives.

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Note: I learned that a hectare (symbol: ha) is a unit of area that is accepted in the International System of Units (SI). It is primarily used to measure land area. One hectare is equal to 10,000 square meters and is equivalent to approximately 2.471 acres.

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