UK first for rare cactus

Glasshouse supervisor Alex Summers beside the rare Amazonian cactus called the moonflower at Cambridge University’s Botanic Garden as it blossoms for what botanists believe is the first time in the UK. Experts kept a night watch throughout the week for the flowering of selenicereus wittii – an event which begins at sunset and is over by sunrise. In the event, the moonflower actually bloomed on Saturday afternoon.

NHS doctors have reportedly become the first in the world to complete heart transplants in children using organs brought back to life by a new machine.

Donated hearts have historically come from people who are braindead but whose hearts are still beating, which limits the scope for the number of transplants possible.

But the Sunday Times says surgeons from the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire have been able to make hearts start beating again after they had stopped, and successfully transplanted them into children.

The doctors have used a heart-in-a-box machine called the Organ Care System to bring the hearts back to life once removed from the donor.

The machine replicates the conditions of the human body.

Once a defibrillation pulse is used to start the hearts beating again, they are kept warm and have 1.5 litres of the donor’s blood pumped through them in a cycle,and receive nutrients.

Doctors are also able to regulate the heart rate by remote control if necessary.

The hearts have then been flown to London for transplanting at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The technique had been tried in adults before, but has now saved the lives of six British children aged between 12 and 16 since last February, all of whom had lifethreatening conditions.

On average, children have to wait two-and-ahalf times longer than adults for hearts to become available.

The breakthrough is expected to allow a substantial expansion in the number of donor hearts available.