The US Congress has approved $25.4 billion for Nasa for 2023, including full funding for a second Artemis programme moon lander to supplement SpaceX’s Starship. Elon Musk’s space firm plans to take Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and eight other passengers on the dearMoon voyage around Earth’s natural satellite in late 2023. Among other key space missions are Esa’s Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE), which is set to take off in April 2023.
Advanced exoskeletons, in recent years, are slowly becoming available to the general public — they are not limited to Winter Soldier or Cyborg in comic books. According to a study published in the Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, ATLAS2030 Pediatric Gait Exoskeleton is seen improving the range of motion and maximum isometric hip, knee, and ankle strength in three children with spinal muscular atrophy. Claimed to be the most advanced mobile medical exoskeleton, the technology may soon become commercially available and help kids with neuromuscular diseases or cerebral palsy. Take that Dr Otto Octavius!
Another key advancement in medical science is xenotransplantation. On January 7, surgeons at the University of Maryland School of Medicine successfully transplanted a genetically modified pig heart into a 57-year-old man in the end stage of heart disease. Though the patient died two months after the groundbreaking experiment, the process opened a way to solve organ shortage. Our cultural imagination is rife with hybridity — from elephant-headed Ganesha to the falcon-headed Egyptian god Horus to Greek gorgon snake-haired Medusa — but the strong immune response among different species is believed to be the biggest barrier to the success of Xenotransplantation. Notwithstanding the setback, genetic engineering can provide a pragmatic solution. Certainly not in 2023, but in the following years, there could be no waiting list because of a ready supply of appropriate organs, available at all times.
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