A team of surgeons at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas have achieved something that hadn’t previously been done in the US. With the help of a Swedish surgical team, doctors performed the first uterus transplants from living donors . The experimental procedures took place between September 14th and 22nd with four total transplants. While the first three were unsuccessful, the fourth patient is showing positive results based on follow-up tests. The transplanted uteri were removed from those first three patients and they’re expected to resume normal activity soon. For the fourth patient, tests indicate good blood flow to the uterus with no signs of rejection or infection. “We are cautiously optimistic that she could ultimately become the first uterine transplant recipient in the US to make it to the milestone of uterine functionality, ” a statement from Baylor University Medical Center explained. 16 uterine transplants have been performed around the world thus far. In fact, the Swedish team that assisted doctors at Baylor are considered experts on the procedure. There have been five births following procedures they’ve completed. Following these most recent transplants, both surgical teams say they’ve gained valuable knowledge from the three unsuccessful cases that will prove beneficial to future operations. Changes will include updates to protocols and post-op management with special attention to the thickness of the uterine veins. Back in February, the Cleveland Clinic performed the first uterus transplant in the US. In that case, the 26-year-old recipient would have needed to have the organ removed after one or two pregnancies due to medications that kept her body from rejecting it. Due to compromised blood flow caused by an infection in the weeks that followed, the transplanted uterus was removed in March. Via: CNN Source: Baylor University Medical Center (1) , (2)
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Surgeons complete first uterus transplants from live donors in US
The Pirate Bay will probably never be the darling of any government; we’ve seen various Pirate Bay domains cracked down on, and the arrests of site founders. An anonymous reader writes now with the news reported this morning by TorrentFreak that: the Stockholm District Court has ordered two key domains owned by The Pirate Bay to be seized. While the ruling means that the site will lose its famous ThePirateBay.se domain, don’t expect the site to simply disappear. TPB informs TorrentFreak that they have plenty more domains left in store. From the point of view of the down-crackers, It’s a hard problem, particularly when it’s easy for people to spin up their own instances of the site. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
schwit1 writes A giant welding machine, built for NASA’s multi-billion dollar Space Launch System (SLS), has to be taken apart and rebuilt because the contractor failed to reinforce the floor, as required, prior to construction: “Sweden’s ESAB Welding & Cutting, which has its North American headquarters in Florence, South Carolina, built the the roughly 50-meter tall Vertical Assembly Center as a subcontractor to SLS contractor Boeing at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. ESAB was supposed to reinforce Michoud’s floor before installing the welding tool, but did not, NASA SLS Program Manager Todd May told SpaceNews after an April 15 panel session during the 31st Space Symposium here. As a result, the enormous machine leaned ever so slightly, cocking the rails that guide massive rings used to lift parts of the 8.4-meter-diameter SLS stages The rings wound up 0.06 degrees out of alignment, which may not sound like much, “but when you’re talking about something that’s 217 feet [66.14 meters] tall, that adds up, ” May said. Asked why ESAB did not reinforce the foundation as it was supposed to, May said only it was a result of “a miscommunication between two [Boeing] subcontractors and ESAB.” It is baffling how everyone at NASA, Boeing, and ESAB could have forgotten to do the reinforcing, even though it was specified in the contract. It also suggests that the quality control in the SLS rocket program has some serious problems. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
theodp writes On Tuesday, the State of Washington heard public testimony on House Bill 1813 (video), which takes aim at boy’s historical over-representation in K-12 computer classes. To allow them to catch flights, representatives of Microsoft and Microsoft-bankrolled Code.org were permitted to give their testimony before anyone else (“way too many young people, particularly our girls…simply don’t have access to the courses at all, ” lamented Jane Broom, who manages Microsoft’s philanthropic portfolio), so it’s unclear whether they were headed to the airport when a representative of the WA State Superintendent of Public Instruction voiced the sole dissent against the Bill. “The Superintendent strongly believes in the need to improve our ability to teach STEM, to advance computer science, to make technology more available to all students, ” explained Chris Vance. “Our problem, and our concern, is with the use of the competitive grant program…just providing these opportunities to a small number of students…that’s the whole basic problem…disparity of opportunity…if this is a real priority…fund it fully” (HB 1813, like the White House K-12 CS plan, counts on philanthropy to make up for tax shortfalls). Hey, parents of boys are likely to be happy to see another instance of educators striving to be more inclusive than tech when it comes to encouraging CS participation! Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
An anonymous reader writes: Torrent site isoHunt appears to have unofficially resurrected The Pirate Bay at oldpiratebay.org. At first glance, The Old Pirate Bay seems to be just a commemorative site for The Pirate Bay, which went down this week after police raided its data center in Sweden. Upon further inspection, however, it turns out the site is serving new content. This is much more than just a working archive of The Pirate Bay; it has a functioning search engine, all the old listings, and working magnet links. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
The idea of branding a place is a fairly new one, and the notion of place-based typefaces is even newer, with national and local governments from Qatar to Chattanooga commissioning their own fonts. The latest country to set its on typeface is Sweden—but it’s also questioning whether a national font is a bit too nationalistic for their progressive Scandinavian sensibilities. Read more…