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Allerdale councillor Nicky Cockburn lives in Great Broughton and has been one of the people campaigning for action. |
"I'm absolutely delighted, over the moon. It's been a long time coming, lots of people have been campaigning for this, the parish councils in particular," said Mrs Cockburn. |
"The junctions are awful. There are vehicles travelling at 60mph in both directions, making it very difficult to turn on to the road. |
"So often you see people taking their lives in their hands when there are queues of cars behind them." |
Chairman of Broughton Parish Council, Mary Bradley, said: "There are reminders all of the time of how dangerous this junction is, it's great that this is going to happen at last, people can't wait. |
"At the moment it takes you forever to turn left and right, it's not just crossing both carriageways. |
"The junctions are getting busier and busier with all the developments." |
Margaret Light is chairman of Brigham Parish Council. |
"This is absolutely essential, there have been so many accidents there, at least one or two a month," she said. |
"This will make it so much easier for everyone. |
"There's far more traffic these days and when there are roadworks everyone diverts through Broughton Cross and Brigham and adds to the numbers of the dangerous junction. |
"We owe a very big thank you to Nicky Cockburn. She has been at this like a terrier, she got hold of it and didn't let go!" |
Work will start on Saturday to repair Stoneybeck parapet, near Broughton Cross. Over the following month, preparation work work for the whole package of improvements, including moving some utility services, will be done. |
The timescale for major work will be announced early next month. |
A Highways England spokesman said: "This is a major investment in the A66, we are aware this has been an ambition for local people for some time." |
The waiting list for organ transplants is growing at an alarming rate while the number of potential organ donors has failed to keep pace. Encouragingly, scientists are working several high-tech solutions in the field of regenerative medicine. We spoke to the experts to learn how organ shortages will soon become a thing... |
Organ shortages are a growing health concern. Each year in the United States there are approximately 28,000 transplants, with 120,000 people stuck on waiting lists. Tragically, most people on the wait list die before they ever get an organ. Furthermore, it has been estimated that 35% of all U.S. deaths — about 900,000 ... |
Looking at kidneys alone, about 25,000 people die each year waiting for a donation. And as New Organ founder Dave Gobel told io9, there are approximately two million estimated individuals in Europe, North America, and in the British Commonwealth who need replacement organs but don't show up anywhere on waiting lists be... |
At the same time, 95% of Americans support organ donation, but only 40% are registered organ donors. |
There's also the issue of how organs are procured today. |
"For someone needing a heart/lung transplant, someone must die for them," says Gobel "Imagine being in a situation where you must hope someone dies so you can live." |
Compounding the problem is that even for the fortunate few who do receive an organ donation (aside from those who receive a kidney), there are severe constraints on the quality of life after an operation. Many face a lifetime filled with the need to take auto-immune suppression drugs to stave off organ rejection, while... |
"If all of that works out, they will still be facing the fact that transplant organs will often need to be replaced within 10 years of implant," says Gobel. "A ticking time bomb of life. Better than death for sure, but wow, what a life." |
New Organ, a collective initiative hosted by Methuselah Foundation (a biomedical charity) and managed by the Institute of Competition Sciences, is currently raising awareness and facilitating research initiatives to help alleviate the shortages, including the New Organ Liver Prize — a $1,000,000 award to the first team... |
Indeed, as the biotechnology revolution takes shape, a number of solutions are emerging, including the ability to regenerate whole organs using stem cells, bioprinting tissue, and developing artificial and assistive organs. What's more, we'll soon be able to reliably preserve these bioengineered organs for when they're... |
One of the most exciting avenues of research in this realm is regenerative medicine. This line of inquiry is particularly promising because it leverages the body's innate capacity to heal and defend. So rather than having to depend on an organ donor, patients will eventually be able to receive a bioengineered organ tai... |
A prime example is the work being done by Dr. Stephen Badylak at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a program of the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC. His team is currently working on a viable liver for transplantation. |
"The first liver transplants were done decades ago and we have an excellent record with liver transplants in general," Badylak told io9. "So you might expect among the organs for organ engineering that we're using the liver as a template — and it's not just because of the history, but because the liver has a lot of reg... |
At the McGowen Institute, researchers utilize an array of approaches as they work to restore functional tissues, including cell based approaches, the development of bioactive molecules, and cell-based, or stem cell-based, therapies. Consequently, the institute has a good history of developing artificial organs for orga... |
"Organ engineering, however, takes it to the next level," says Badylak. "That involves the development of a custom-designed organ — a liver, heart, kidney, or lung — and it would be available 'off the shelf' for a patient who needs one, for whatever reason." |
"It's pretty exciting," he says. "The reason I'm high on this is because the only thing lacking in taking this to patients are resources. It's not like some major breakthrough in science is required to make this work — we've got all the pieces, parts, tools, and know-how. It's just a matter of figuring out the right co... |
Badylak estimates that about $10 to $30 million is required to make it happen, which he says is not very much in the large scheme of things. |
"The fundamental concepts upon which this approach is based are already understood," he says. "We know how to harvest a 3D scaffold for any organ. We can take a liver, lung, heart, or kidney and remove all of the cells from that organ so that you're only left with the scaffold of the material that the cells resided upo... |
The second part of the process involves the reintroduction of cells. The researchers take a patient's cells, such as a skin cell or a muscle cell, and convert it into a stem cell that can be driven along a particular line of differentiation. This way, a stem cell can be coaxed into becoming a liver cell, or a kidney ce... |
"We know how to do that," says Badylak. "Now it's just a matter of saying, let's put these patients together, and let's learn how to align the appropriate blood vessels so that when they hook the plumbing up to the patients we don't get clots forming. These are very doable things, it simply takes a coordinated effort, ... |
Badylak is right to be encouraged. Back in 2013, biologists transplanted a functional lab-grown kidney into a live animal. |
Indeed, the advantages of this approach are substantial. As New Organ's David Gobel told me, regenerative medicine is industrializable and determinative. |
"They are amenable to robotic implementation, and thus can be low cost," he says, whereas "traditional medicine is about personal triage, temporary arrest of decline at enormous unconscionable costs that are bankrupting the globe." |
Regenerative medicine, on the other hand, "is predictive, restorative, efficient and socially, ethically, medically and in all other ways just better." |
Another hugely promising area in regenerative medicine is the process of 3D bioprinting. |
A leader in this area is Organovo, a San Diego-based medical lab and research company currently developing functional, three-dimensional human tissue via 3D bioprinting technology. |
The bioprinting process first involves the identification of the structural and compositional elements of the tissue that is to be printed and the creation of a viable design that can be utilized by the printer. Following this stage, a bioprocess protocol is developed to build the multi-cellular building blocks — which... |
A bioprinter then dispenses the bio-ink in a layer-by-layer (or additive) manner. Sometimes a bio-inert hydrogel is used for support as tissues are constructed up vertically to achieve three-dimensionality, or as fillers to create channels or fill spaces like in normal tissue. |
One person who's looking to leverage the power of bioprinting is Dr. John Geibel, the vice chair of surgery and professor of surgery and cellular and molecular physiology at Yale School of Medicine. He told me that bioprinting is poised "to change the way medicine is done in that, with the ability to print replacement ... |
Geibel's particular area of research is gastrointestinal disease, so he's very interested in the idea of developing a replacement for the small intestine and developing a liver replacement. |
"The intestine is one of the most difficult tissues to repair and replace due to its delicate nature and sensitivity to fluctuations in oxygen and also to neurological disturbances during surgery," he says. "The liver has now become much easier to transplant with the many advancements in technology and surgical techniq... |
To that end, his team is hoping to develop a bioprinted organ that will be used as an "assist" organ that can be implanted and help the patient with their failing liver. This assist liver, or "liver patch," is not intended to fully replace the failing liver, but will keep the patient in a better state of health while w... |
Importantly, we're also going to need to find a way to store these organs for future use. |
As Gobel told me, the 3D liver assays can live for 42 days, but a heart for transplantation can currently be stored on ice for only 4-5 hours, and for lung tissue the cold ischemia time is around 4-6 hours. |
"Such ridiculously short 'use by' times causes an embarrassingly and deadly proportion of transplant organs to simply go bad before they can be allocated, delivered and transplanted into a recipient," he says. "The ability to store organ-sized tissues for at least 40 days would improve inventory and thus organ matching... |
The ability to cryopreserve organs would result in numerous lives saved, better medical outcomes, lower costs, faster medical progress, and even better emergency transport systems, including UAV-based ambulances. |
In such a world, we would be able to maintain "back-up copies" of each of our organs in the event they'll be needed later. |
From a technological perspective, we're getting close to being able to pull this off. Already today, stem cells, sperm, eggs, and embryos are cryopreserved for long-term banking. Regular advances in ice blocker, cryoprotectants, and vitrification are now making it possible to preserve arteries, veins, heart valves, tra... |
The importance of this research has not been lost on the U.S. Department of Defense who, back on January 14th of this year, announced government grant programs for organ banking transplant research initiatives. Through its Tissue Injury and Regenerative Medicine program, the DoD hopes to fund 20 or more leading U.S. re... |
"People seem to underestimate what could be coming. This is a big step towards a future in which we routinely replace damaged organs and tissues to restore both form and function, in a way that only transplantation allows — replacing 'like with like'," noted Dr. Gerald Brandacher of Johns Hopkins in a statement. "The a... |
I asked Gobel and Geibel what we can expect in the coming years and decades. |
"We already have liver assays, but in about about 12 to 18 months there will be the equivalent toxicology and pharmacokinetic test assays for kidneys," replied Gobel. "By 2019 there will be clinically relevant tissue patches for livers. It is likely that the thymus will be able to reboot the immune system's competence ... |
Geibel hopes that by the 2030s we'll be able to 3D print new livers and intestines for patients in need, while dramatically reducing their wait for an organ to just the time necessary to print the replacement from their own cells. |
"Furthermore, since the replacement organ is coming from their cells there will be no rejection issues and thus it will eliminate the need for the anti rejection immunosuppressant drugs. We will no longer worry if a child adolescent or adult needs an organ, because we can print an organ that is a perfect match in cell ... |
For 24 hours in June, huge radio towers were set up on Lakeside Junior High School's basketball courts in Orange Park to help showcase the dependable nature of radio. |
The event was the Clay County component of the American Radio Relay League's Field Day, a national readiness exercise that prepares more than 35,000 groups around the nation to provide emergency services. |
Even in the modern age of cellphones and the Internet, amateur radio is a popular endeavor because radio is still the most reliable form of telecommunications on the planet. The league is a critical component of North Florida's emergency network - particularly during hurricane season - and often works with the American... |
"Amateur radio is for emergencies," said Bob Ivey, a member of the Clay County division of the League, "and for fun." |
The fun part of Field Day is when "ham" radio operators interact with each other as they get "contacts," which are brief exchanges of information with other amateur clubs across the country. During this year's event, held in a Lakeside portable classroom, they exchanged more than 2,000 contacts from 2 p.m. one Friday t... |
Their club call sign was K4BT, which is how they identified themselves when they exchanged contacts throughout the day across the country, including Alaska, Hawaii, North and South Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Texas and California. |
Cookies and other snacks helped keep them sharp, and the public was welcome to observe. About 80 people were in attendance at the event's busiest point during the Friday supper hour. |
"I think we had more operators operating all night, with four people who stayed through the night, traditionally the least active time frame of the exercise each year," Ivey said after the event. "This year, the participation was really great." |
The Clay Field Day has been held at Lakeside for years. League member Jim Iori's wife, a former teacher at the school, persuaded administrators to allow the group to stage the readiness drills in a portable classroom. She retired two years ago, but the school has allowed the tradition to continue, members said. |
For more information, go to arrl.org. |
On the March morning Bobbie Collins found herself headed toward the delivery room at Mercy Medical Center, Bobbie's mother glanced at her watch and wistfully remarked, "Eight o'clock. I guess the kids are all headed for school now." |
"Yeah," Bobbie said between labor contractions. "We have a big Spanish test today. I guess I can make it up when I get back." |
She'd gone to school the previous day, completed her homework that night, and then she went into labor. The morning after she gave birth to a son, she had her parents bring books to the hospital so she could work on a term paper for English. She went back to class nine days after Damian Joseph was born. |
She was not alone. On Friday, as the senior class at Southern High gathered at school for the last time, teachers estimated that about one-fourth of the girls in the graduating class already had children of their own. |
There were no estimates on abortions, no figures on those who'd simply disappeared from school for reasons relating to maternity. There is now a program at Southern on parenting skills. |
And last week an English teacher recalled, "A ninth-grader came to me one afternoon and said she wouldn't be in the next day. I asked why. She said she had to go for an abortion. She was 14. I told her I was sorry I asked." |
On Friday, Bobbie Collins was not only among those gathered for a final morning at Southern, but her name was called again and again at a farewell awards assembly: as the school's top student in English, in mathematics, in science, in social studies, and as class valedictorian. |
And now she sat in a little room, with classmates hugging goodbyes in a hallway outside, and Southern's principal, Cecilia Chesno, beamed proudly at Bobbie and mentioned her grades: a perfect 4.0 grade point average, which translated to about 96 or 97 on a scale of 100. |
"What'll you do in the fall?" Bobbie was asked. |
"In the fall?" she said, running a hand through her blond hair. |
"Well, nothing in the fall. In the spring, maybe I'll go to Villa Julie." |
All plans are now reduced to maybes. She intends to marry her boyfriend in the spring, but he just started a new job, and he may be transferred out of town. So any college thoughts will have to wait for his employment possibilities. |
"But I'll go to college," she said. "I'm not gonna be one of these women who sits at home with the baby. That would drive me crazy." |
At Southern, roughly 40 percent of the graduates expect to head for college or trade school. There are about 150 in the class, although last Friday, at the close of school, it was not clear how many will qualify for graduation. When this class entered Southern four years ago, there were about 500 of them. |
Where all the dropouts have gone, nobody can say. Of those graduating who now begin looking for jobs, no one knows the future. Labor officials say it's the worst job market in 20 years for graduates. |
But the picture at Southern is vital, for the school is at once an oddity and an absolute microcosm of the city itself: odd, in that it's one of the last couple of city high schools with a truly integrated student body; but a microcosm, in that its 60-40 black-white student ratio mirrors the city itself, and thus offer... |
"They're real nice kids," Principal Chesno said now. "And this young lady is remarkable." |
There is no question of that. But this city still has one of the highest rates of unwed teen-age pregnancies in the country, and not everyone has Bobbie Collins' tenacity, or her brains, or her will to succeed. |
Nor is Southern High alone in having roughly 350 of its original 500 kids from the Class of '93 drop out somewhere between freshman year and graduation. And its junior class, which once had about 500 kids, is now down to about 180 with a year left to go. |
On Friday, there were cheers in the school auditorium when the names of award winners were announced, and then everybody marched outside, teary-eyed and filled with that mix of triumph ,, and anxiety felt by all graduates. |
They were lovely to watch. But the world does not greet them with open arms, and now some of their teachers stood there for a moment and took a last look at them. |
"How many will find work?" one asked. |
"How many of them?" said another. "Hey, I'm still looking for a summer job for myself, and I have no idea where that's coming from." |
Update 11:30 a.m. 10/14: Seattle indie-rock quartet Band of Horses has been added to the lineup for Saturday. If you enjoyed My Morning Jacket’s set at the Bridge shows last year, this might be right up your alley. Hey, maybe they’ll work up a version of “Tube Snake Boogie”! |
Lawn tickets for both shows are still available for $39.50 at Livenation.com. As always, proceeds from the all-star acoustic show go toward the Bridge School, a non-profit institution that helps children with severe speech and physical impairments. |
The Jonas Brothers are in the house. |
It lasts for only 30 seconds or so, but it’s more entertaining than seeing him jam with ZZ Top and Brooke doing a duet with Graham Nash (more dinosaurs!). |
Finally, the oldies party is crashed by someone relevant to the kiddies — the Jonas Brothers. We don’t understand the appeal. But then again, we’re not 12. |
The U.S. government has proposed another round of trade talks with China to avoid further escalation in the countries' trade dispute, according to three people familiar with the matter. |
Senior officials led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin recently extended the invitation to counterparts in China, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity. One of the sources said the talks, if agreed to by the Chinese, are likely to take place in Washington. |
The Wall Street Journal reported the U.S. overture earlier Wednesday, citing anonymous sources. |
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