First U.S. full face transplant performed
BOSTON, March 21 (UPI) -- Surgeons at a Boston hospital say they have performed the first full face transplant in the United States on a Texas man burned in a 2008 electrical accident.
Brigham and Women's Hospital surgeons attached a donor's face last week to Dallas Weins, 25, who lost all of his facial features when a crane he was working on came into contact with a live wire, The Boston Globe reported Monday.
A team of more than 30 physicians, nurses, anesthesiologists and residents worked for more than 15 hours to replace Wiens' facial area, "including the nose, lips, facial skin, muscles of facial animation and the nerves that power them and provide sensation," the hospital said in a statement.
The transplant covered his face from the middle of his scalp to his neck.
The name of the donor was not released.
"This remarkable, anonymous gift is another example of the life-affirming power of organ and tissue donation," said Richard S. Luskin of the New England Organ Bank. "As always, we are immensely grateful to the donor and the donor family for their generosity."
Doctors said the transplant went as planned.
"There were no complications," Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a plastic surgeon who led the transplant team, said. "He's doing great, and he's right on the mark with expected progress."
Study: Trash built Everglades islands
SANTA FE, N.M., March 21 (UPI) -- Scientists say the Florida Everglades' tree islands, sites of biological richness in the vast marsh, may owe their existence to ancient human garbage.
Trash mounds left behind from human settlements that date to about 5,000 years ago could have triggered the development of the islands, elevated above the Everglades enough for trees to grow and provide nesting sites for alligators and a refuge for birds, panthers, and other wildlife, a release by the American Geophysical Union said Monday.
Dotting the marshes of the Everglades, tree islands are typically 3 to 4 feet high.
Ancient trash piles, a mixture of bones, food discards, charcoal, and human artifacts such as clay pots and shell tools, would have provided an elevated area, drier than the surrounding marsh, allowing trees and other vegetation to grow.
Bones would have provided phosphorus, a nutrient for plants that is otherwise scarce in the Everglades, researchers say.
"This goes to show that human disturbance in the environment doesn't always have a negative consequence," said Gail Chmura, a paleoecologist at McGill University in Montreal, and one of the authors of a study being presented at an AGU conference in Santa Fe, N.M., on Tuesday.
The researchers warn that humans are now threatening many tree islands by cutting down trees whose roots keep the islands bound together and by artificially maintaining high water levels year-round in some water control systems.
NASA tests next Mars rover
PASADENA, Calif., March 21 (UPI) -- Scientists at NASA say they are putting the space agency's next-generation Mars rover, set to be sent to the planet next year, through a series of tough tests.
Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., say they've installed the Curiosity rover in a space-simulation chamber that can mimic the environment the probe will encounter on Mars, a JPL release said Monday.
Inside the 25-foot-diameter air was pumped out to near-vacuum pressure, liquid nitrogen in the walls dropped the temperature to minus 202 degrees Fahrenheit, and a bank of powerful lamps simulated the intensity of sunshine on Mars, JPL said.
After the test period, the rover along with other portions of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft including the cruise stage, descent stage and backshell -- part of protective covering -- will be shipped to the Kennedy Space Center for final preparation for the launch window of Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, 2011.
Curiosity will study whether a Mars has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and for preserving evidence about whether Martian life has existed, NASA said.
Study: Island albatross separate species
LETHBRIDGE, Alberta, March 21 (UPI) -- Canadian scientists say they've confirmed the world's most rare albatross, with just 170 birds living on an island in the Indian Ocean, is a separate species.
Researchers at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta say the DNA of the Amsterdam albatross is different from that of the wandering albatross, its closest relative, the BBC reported Monday.
The surviving birds all live on Amsterdam Island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, and can weigh 18 pounds with a wingspan of more than 11 feet.
The birds, which breed on a single plateau on the island, were discovered in 1983 but there has been considerable debate as to whether they were a distinct species.
Researchers say the birds differ in appearance from the closely related wandering albatrosses.
"They are slightly smaller in size," Lethbridge researcher Theresa Burg said. "They lay their eggs at a different time and have slightly browner plumage than the other wandering albatrosses."
DNA analysis showed that Amsterdam albatrosses separated from their cousins and evolved into a genetically distinct species about 265,000 years ago.
Scientists hope efforts to conserve the critically endangered species will increase now that they have been recognized as unique.
"This is one additional, but important, piece of evidence that hopefully can help protect the remaining Amsterdam albatrosses," Burg said.
