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- Yale University scientists have succeeded in restoring basic cellular activity in pigs’ brains hours after their deaths in a finding that may one day lead to advances in treating human stroke and brain injuries, researchers reported on 17th April.
- The scientists emphasized that their work did not even come close to reawakening consciousness in the disembodied pig brains. In fact the experiment was specifically designed to avoid such an outcome, however improbable.
- Still, the study raises a host of bioethical issues, including questions about the very definition of brain death and potential consequences for protocols related to organ donation.
- The research grew out of efforts to enhance the study of brain development, disorders and evolution.
- The main practical application is the prospect of allowing scientists to analyze whole brain specimens of large mammals in three dimensions, rather than through studies confined to small tissue samples, Yale said
- The study, backed by the National Institutes of Health, offers no immediate clinical breakthrough for humans, according to the authors.
- Results of the experiment, to be published on Thursday in the journal Nature, run contrary to long-accepted principles of brain death, which hold that vital cellular activity ceases irreversibly seconds or minutes after oxygen and blood flow are cut off.
- The limited rejuvenation of circulatory function and cellular metabolism in pig brains, which were harvested from animals slaughtered at a meat-packing plant, was achieved four hours after death by infusing the brains with a special chemical solution designed to preserve the tissue.
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- Nepals first satellite has been launched into space, which will soon start rotating around the Earths orbit to collect information about the countrys topography and Earths magnetic field, officials said here on 18th April.
- The NepaliSat-1 was launched at 2.31 a.m. on 17th April from the Virginia-based station of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the US, according to authorities at the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST).
- The satellite, developed by two Nepalis Abhas Maskey and Hariram Shrestha at Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology, bears the Nepal flag and the NAST logo. Similar satellites from Japan and Sri Lanka were also launched alongside NepaliSat-1, reports The Kathmandu Post.
- According to the NAST, the satellite is equipped with a 5MP camera to capture Nepal's topography and a magnetometer to collect data related to the Earth's magnetic field.
- "The satellite will first reach the International Space Station. It will then start rotating around the earth after a month," Suresh Kumar Dhungel, senior technical officer and NAST spokesperson, told The Kathmandu Post.
- The images and data will be sent by the satellite to the ground station at NAST, which is currently under construction."The ground station will be ready before our satellite starts rotating," said Dhungel.
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