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The experiment, which took place in Guangzhou, China, kept the lungs alive and working for nine days, despite showing signs of rejection early on in the procedure. The researchers behind the study say that their work "paves the way for further innovations in the field," although questions remain about how successful such a procedure could be for a living patient removed from a life support machine.
(Image credit: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images)
If at first your gigantic rocket explodes… explode it again and again until you succeed. That's been SpaceX's "fail fast, learn fast" ethos since it began development of its Falcon 9 rocket 20 years ago, and it finally paid off for its largest rocket, Starship, as it nailed a successful test flight this week.
The 10th test flight marks a comeback for the company after a string of explosive failures, some of which littered the Caribbean with debris. It came just in time for the company, and for NASA too — the rocket, the largest ever built, is key to ambitions to transport crewmembers, spacecraft, satellites and cargo into orbit around Earth, with a moon mission planned as early as 2027.
Cheetahs, marlins, peregrine falcons — fast animals get all the fame. But what about the slowest animals? And how do they survive in the wild while moving, literally, at a snail's pace? Here's our investigation into how Earth's most unhurried animals live life in the slow lane.
Scientists have created a flexible, machine-washable fiber that can perform computing tasks. In theory, that means they could one day weave them together to form a "fiber computing network" made up of smart textiles.
These fibers have historically had limited computing ability, and scientists weren't able to embed multiple types of electronic components into them.
The new material weaves eight devices into a single fiber strand, including a photodetector, a temperature sensor, an accelerometer and a photoplethysmogram (PPG) sensor, which measures changes in light absorption by the skin. The material is also elastic, which makes it practical for clothing applications, the researchers say.
There's the number of candles you blow out on your birthday cake, and then there's your "biological age," a measure of how much your biological systems have broken down over time. In other words, how well do your cells, organs and body systems work compared to a typical, healthy 40-year-old?
A number of scientists have touted their ability to measure this biological age with "aging clocks." These clocks often work by using AI to glean patterns from hundreds of biomarkers, or indirect measures of health, taken from large groups of people. They then compare a person's biomarkers against this aggregate group to pin down the biological age.
But can they really predict disease, and are the results reliable for commercial use?
Something for the weekend
If you're looking for something to do over the weekend, here are some of the best polls, book interviews and crosswords published this week.
A sneak peek of the shortlisted 2025 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition entries was released this week, featuring a heartbreaking shot of a sloth clinging to a wooden post, a lioness staring down a cobra, an ethereal jellyfish swarm, and clouds reflected in salt ponds in San Francisco Bay.
Ben Turner is a U.K. based writer and editor at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.
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