Daily Archives: October 20, 2021


Pig-to-human Transplants Come a Step Closer With New Test 

Scientists temporarily attached a pig’s kidney to a human body and watched it begin to work, a small step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for lifesaving transplants. Pigs have been the most recent research focus to address the organ shortage, but among the hurdles: A sugar in pig cells, foreign to the human body, causes immediate organ rejection. The kidney for this experiment came from a gene-edited animal, engineered to eliminate that sugar and avoid an immune system attack. Surgeons attached the pig kidney to …


New York City Mandating COVID-19 Vaccines for City Workers

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a vaccine mandate for city workers Wednesday. The order calls for employees, including police officers and firefighters, to have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by October 29 or else they will be placed on unpaid leave. The mayor’s office said the mandate applies to about 160,500 workers, and that 71% of them have already received one COVID-19 vaccine dose. “There is no greater privilege than serving the people of New York City, and that privilege comes with a …