Inspirational and good news.
A new technology is being tested that may one day allow patients who have suffered heart attack or heart disease to ‘patch’ their broken hearts with new, lab-grown tissue.
The team led by professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City are using a bioreactor to grow new tissues to spec. There are problems yet to be worked out, but animal trials are underway, with the hope of starting human trials perhaps in a decade.
California’s Public Utilities Commission has voted 3 to-1 to create the largest solar program of its kind in any state in the U.S. The ten-year California Solar Initiative will provide US$2.9 billion to accelerate the transition to clean energy and to reduce the consumer costs of solar electricity. The goal is to increase the capacity of installed rooftop PV panels by 3,000 MW by 2017.
The California program is the second largest in the world, after Germany, and the Vote Solar group estimates the initiative will result in a net positive benefit for California of $1.2 to $18.2 billion, depending on the cost of avoided power and timeframe, and would create 39,948 to 61,458 job-years by 2026.