Enlarge / Scanning electron micrograph of a human T cell. (credit: NIAID/NIH ) For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a therapy that involves genetically engineering a patient’s own cells, the agency announced Wednesday . The therapy, called Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) by Novartis, will be used to reprogram the immune cells of pediatric and young adult patients with a certain type of leukemia, called B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. During a 22-day out-of-body retraining, patients’ immune cells—specifically T cells that patrol the body and destroy enemies—get a new gene that allows them to identify and attack the leukemia cells. Such therapies, called CAR-T therapies, have shown potential for effectively knocking back cancers in several trials, raising hopes of researchers and patients alike. But they come with severe safety concerns —plus potentially hefty price tags. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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FDA approves first gene therapy for certain leukemia patients
In the self-driving future envisioned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, car owners might be saying “goodbye” to a whole lot more than steering wheels. From a Mashable report: Musk is so sure of the safety features bundled into Tesla vehicles that his company has begun offering some customers a lifetime insurance and maintenance package at the time of purchase. No more monthly insurance bills. No more unexpected repair costs. “We’ve been doing it quietly, ” Tesla President of Global Sales and Service Jonathan McNeill explained on the call, “but in Asia in particular where we started this, now the majority of Tesla cars are sold with an insurance product that is customized to Tesla, that takes into account not only the Autopilot safety features but also the maintenance costs of the car.” “It’s our vision in the future that we’ll be able to offer a single price for the car, maintenance and insurance in a really compelling offering for the consumer, ” added McNeill. “And we’re currently doing that today.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
An anonymous reader writes: It may come as a surprise to many, but the 20-year-old Compaq LTE 5280 still plays a vital role in maintaining multi-million dollar McLaren F1s. Jalopnik recently visited McLaren’s Special Operations workshop where it found several of Compaq’s old laptops serving their masters. Why do they rely on these dated computers, you ask? A McLaren Special Operations staff explains, “The reason we need those specific Compaq laptops is that they run a bespoke CA card which is installed into them. The CA card is an interface between the laptop software (which is DOS based) and the car. We are currently working on a new interface which will be compatible with modern laptops as the old Compaqs are getting less and less reliable and harder to find.” For those wondering, the Compaq LTE 5280 comes with a 120MHz Intel Pentium processor, up to “80MB” of RAM, and up to 16MB of HDD. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
By Cat DiStasio Fuel efficiency is one rating that can really set a car apart from the pack. Although you can’t yet walk into just any dealership and drive away in a vehicle that gets more than 100 miles a gallon, there are some sweet rides out there that demonstrate just how incredibly efficient a car can be. To get a better idea of what the uber-efficient car of tomorrow looks like, we’ve compiled some of the most efficient vehicles on the planet, all of which exceed that 100-mpg marker. In fact, most of the cars featured here leave that rating in the dust, and several break into the quadruple digits .Slideshow-342967 
