Baby born from donor womb
In a first for the U.S., doctors in Cleveland have delivered a healthy baby from a uterus transplanted into the mother from a deceased donor. Pioneered in Sweden, uterine transplants can allow women with uterine factor infertility (UFI) to give birth. Women with this condition are born without a uterus—like the unnamed new mom in Cleveland—or have suffered uterine damage from an infection or medical procedure or have had a hysterectomy. The baby girl in Cleveland, delivered via caesarean section in June, is only the second child born from a uterus transplanted from a dead donor. More than a dozen women have given birth following uterine transplants; all but one received the womb from a living donor, such as a friend or family member. Transplant recipients have to take immunosuppressive drugs to prevent their body from rejecting the uterus; if all goes well, they then try to conceive using in vitro fertilization. “This is still research,” Uma Perni from the Cleveland Clinic tells USA Today. “But it’s exciting to see what the options may be for women in the future.”
no health benefit—and in some cases might be harming themselves. That’s the conclusion of a new meta-analysis of 277 studies, which together included nearly 1 million people, to determine supplements’ effect on cardiovascular health. The researchers found that only a few of the 16 supplements and eight diets tested appeared to do any good. Omega 3 fatty acids, commonly found in fish oil, appeared to lower the risk of heart attacks and coronary heart disease. Folic acid was linked with a reduced risk of stroke. But the evidence for those benefits wasn’t particularly strong. Vitamin A, B, C, D, and E supplements didn’t appear to help heart health at all; nor did calcium, iron, or multivitamins. Furthermore, researchers found, taking calcium with vitamin D increases the risk of stroke, possibly because it increases blood clotting and hardens arteries. “People who are taking these supplements for the sake of improving their cardiovascular health are wasting their money,” lead author Safi Khan, from West Virginia University, tells The New York Times.
ment from humans. To test his creativity, they played Snowball two songs—Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”— three times and filmed his reaction. They found that he was coming up with distinctive dance moves—14 in total, from a “body roll” to “head-foot syncs.” The researchers are now trying to understand Snowball’s motivations, reports The Washington Post, examining how he grooves when his owner is in the same room and when she dances with him. “We want to see if this matters in terms of how much he moves and how he moves,” says lead author Aniruddh Patel, from Tufts University. “This social context, does it play a role in his behavior?”