A scientific journal sparked a Twitter firestorm when it rejected two female scientists’ work partly because the paper they submitted did not have male co-authors.
Evolutionary geneticists Fiona Ingleby and Megan Head collaborated on a study of gender bias in academia. They found that women with a PhD in biology published fewer articles than their male peers, which the authors argued showed gender bias,reports Times Higher Education.
When the women submitted the study to peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, a male reviewer came back with some pretty shocking suggestions.
“Not only did the review seem unprofessional and inappropriate, but it didn’t have any constructive or specific criticism to work on,” Ingleby told Science Insider.
The women’s reviewer also suggested the publishing gap could exist because middle-aged female scientists preferred spending time with their children to working in a lab.
“Perhaps it is not so surprising that on average male doctoral students co-author one more paper than female doctoral students, just as, on average, male doctoral students can probably run a mile race a bit faster than female doctoral students,” the reviewer added, according to Times Higher Education.
PLOS ONE has since apologized, removed the reviewer from its database, and submitted the paper to be reviewed again, the journal said.
In addition to taking a devastating humanitarian toll, the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit central Nepal on April 25 also shrank Mount Everest.
The world’s tallest mountain shrank by about one inch in the quake, according to information provided by UNAVCO, a nonprofit geoscience research consortium, to the site LiveScience. The analysis is based on data from the European Space Agency Sentinel-1A satellite, which passed over the affected area for the first time on April 29.
When the fault between the India and Eurasia tectonic plates slipped, causing the earthquake, strain was released that allowed the Earth’s crust to relax. That relaxation led to a slight reduction of the height of Everest.
In an email to The Huffington Post, Roger Bilham, a fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research In Environmental Sciences and aprofessor in geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, compared the process to suddenly releasing an eraser that’s been squeezed. “Squeeze an eraser and it rises,” he said. “Let go and it shrinks back to its original shape.”
Bilham estimates that Everest shrank by one or two millimeters, while the Annapurna Range, a mountain range located in central Nepal closer to the earthquake, actually grew by 20 centimeters, or roughly 8 inches.
In the above image provided by the German Aerospace Center, the blue region surrounding Kathmandu rose upwards toward the satellite by around 2.6 feet. Yellow areas subsided, or shrank, in elevation away from the satellite. According to the ESA, the ground also shifted horizontally by up to six and a half feet in some areas.
Similarly to the Annapurna Range, an area around Nepal’s capital city of Kathmandu was actually lifted up vertically by around 3 feet,according to an analysis by the German Aerospace Center. The area is estimated to be more than 55 miles long and 18 miles wide.
Data gleaned by the Sentinel-1A satellite is also useful to scientists interested in the mechanics of the quake itself.
“We want to know which parts of the fault slipped,” Tim Wright, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds, told the BBC. “And that’s important because it tells us those parts that did not, and which are still primed and ready to go in a future earthquake.”
Even though doctors have been transplanting human hearts for almost 50 years, it’s still an extremely tricky procedure. Trace explores how a machine called “Heart-in-a-box” could make them easier.
For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.
People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them. When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.
It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.
By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.
We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.
It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.
When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.
Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.
Among patients with pulmonary embolism (PE), adding a retrievable inferior vena cava filter to anticoagulation offers no benefit over anticoagulation alone, a JAMA study finds.
Nearly 400 French patients hospitalized with acute, symptomatic PE and lower-extremity vein thrombosis were randomized to receive anticoagulation alone or with a retrievable filter. At 3 months, recurrent PE had occurred in six patients (3%) in the filter group versus three (1.5%) in the control group (not a statistically significant difference). All six cases in the filter group and two in the control group were fatal.
Based on older studies, the authors say they had anticipated a much higher rate of recurrent PE — about 8% — in the control group. They write, “We believe that the low rate of events observed … is consistent with contemporary care, indicating that modern management with full-dose anticoagulation therapy is likely very effective even in patients usually considered to be at high risk for recurrence, rendering unnecessary additional therapy such as inferior vena cava filters.”
Nothing, perhaps, is sweeter than the first feeble cry of a newborn to a mother. Prabha Subramanian, after two long and gruelling hours in a labour room, heard three such intermittent cries on a hot August afternoon before she slipped into a much-needed post-delivery slumber. The mother of three healthy triplets woke up to a reality she had never imagined for herself. The lingering flowery fragrance of baby powder gave her a headache; the constant clatter in her household as everyone desperately attended to the needs of the infants made her look for solace in her bedroom, shielded by her curtains. Every time she fed her babies, she only wished that they would finish soon and she could return to her do-not-disturb zone. The 29-year-old mother of three first hated her babies, and this unwelcome feeling of ‘hatred’ was soon replaced by guilt. She knew she needed help and approached her doctor in Thiruvananthapuram, who after listening to her mildly broke the news that she was suffering from postpartum depression.
In the skies of faraway France, Andreas Lubitz carefully spiked the cockpit coffee of the flight captain with diuretic drugs. As the sick skipper went to the bathroom, the co-pilot seized the opportunity to take control of the Germanwings Airbus 320. He then plunged the aircraft—and all 150 people on board—into a mountainside on the French Alps on March 24 this year.His were the hands that pushed the botox on pop queen Madonna’s face. He was the creator of model and actress Stephanie Seymour’s never-changing youthful looks. Worried Hollywood celebrities rushed to his address when they saw the first signs of the much-dreaded wrinkles or age spots. He gave them new faces to face the world; he made them sparkle. He was found dead in his Miami home in the US on April 5. He was Fredric Brandt, a celebrity dermatologist.
Somewhere in France, India or the US, there lurked a menace that linked these otherwise unrelated incidents. Lubitz was clinically depressed, as it was revealed after his death and the intentional accident of the jet. Brandt had suffered from severe to mild bouts of depression for decades and he chose death as the only escape from this condition. Here in India, Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone recently talked about how she struggled to overcome depression and finally emerged a winner with the help of family, friends and doctors. According to WHO, India is the most depressed country in the world. And India also has the highest suicide rate than any other country. Alarming as it may sound, experts are of the opinion that if people’s views on depression are not altered or if the rate at which it is growing is not slowed, it will only be a matter of few years for it to turn into an epidemic. “If we look at the statistics, it is easy to conclude that depression will turn into an epidemic if not treated in time. Ninety per cent of people who commit suicide have some kind of psychiatric ailment and 75 per cent of people with mental illness have depression,” says Dr Samir Parikh, director, Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at Fortis Healthcare, Delhi. Every month, around 150-200 patients who visit Parikh are diagnosed with depression. And the number grows into hundreds of lakhs if we take into account the patients of doctors across the country. These are just the reported cases.
Due to low awareness on the illness, many fail to seek professional help and end on a sad note. What is more worrying is that it may happen to people of any age group. “I have come across patients who are as young as 10 to 12 years old. Depression is also common among elderly people who live an isolated life. I had a patient in her eighties whose children had abandoned her as they had to pursue their life abroad. With no one to talk or bond with, isolation led her to depression,” says Dr Sameer Malhotra, Head of the Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences, Max Healthcare, Delhi. Depression, according to Malhotra, is on the rise among the middle-class people. While he hesitates to share the number of cases he sees every month, he agrees that it’s way beyond hundreds.
As we listened to Padukone talking at length about the ‘pittish feeling in her stomach’ or a ‘certain emptiness’ within her, there might have occurred a moment of doubt making us believe that, maybe, depression is a disease of the rich and affluent, or maybe it is an ailment that affects a population following a certain lifestyle. But, before we write off depression as a lifestyle disease or a condition that is difficult to understand, we need to get our facts correct. The causes of depression are many, including familial, and some diseases may trigger depression as a side effect.
Dr Geetha Desai, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, says, “If a woman has a
history of vulnerability such as a biological or genetic predisposition to a mental disease, then there are more chances of her suffering from that disease, given a set of environmental factors. For instance, if she has suffered from mild depression, then chances that she may develop postpartum depression after having a baby are more.” Depression, just like any other ailment, too is a medical condition and caused by biochemical imbalance in the brain. “Deficiencies in two chemicals in the brain, serotonin and norepinephrine, are thought to be responsible for certain symptoms of depression, including anxiety, irritability and fatigue,” says Parikh. Genetics, personality and environmental are some of the other factors related to depression. “Depression can run in the family. For example, if one identical twin has depression, the other has a 70 per cent chance of developing the illness sometime in life. People with low self-esteem, who are easily overwhelmed by stress, or who are generally pessimistic, appear to be vulnerable to depression,” adds Parikh. “Biochemical imbalance plays a huge part. But I won’t deny that even psychological and social issues are important. Because when we see a person suffering from depression, we not only give him medicines to treat biological imbalance, we also address his psychological issues,” says Dr Sangeeta Datta of Guwahati.
Forty-year-old Wasim Ahmed was happy when he was elevated to a post that he was longing for, for quite some time. He, however, had to stay back in the office after duty hours. The life he wished after the promotion did not materialise. Long hours at work made outings with his family rare. He started making mistakes and the work piled up. Some thought he had become lazy, but the management forced him to take a break. So, he consulted G Zaileshia, a Kochi-based clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. “I advised him on time management. He was able to change his life and work,” says Zaileshia.Change in lifestyle, continuous exposure to violence, neglect, abuse or poverty may make people, who are already susceptible to depression, all the more vulnerable to the illness. Depression, however, could still occur under ideal living circumstances. “There is a feeling that only those who are weak have depression, or that people can self-impose the illness and so on. But depression, like any other medical illness, can happen to anyone,” says Parikh. It, however, can also happen without any reason. “Depression can be independent of all these causes. It is called endogenous depression,” adds Dr B N Gangadhar, Professor of Psychiatry at NIMHANS.
Experts believe that the prominence of the Internet, smartphones and social media has a tremendous influence on children and young adults. “People spend hours on their cellphones, laptops and messaging services like WhatsApp. These things cause a lot of communication gap. It also leads to a lack of sleep among young adults. Substance abuse is also a stimulating factor,” observes Dr Chandra Chud Vanapalli, Consultant Psychiatrist at Care Hospital, Hyderabad. Pointing out that marital stress is one of the most common factors leading to depression in women, he says, “The most common is relationship issues between wife and husband. Because of communication gap, they have problems. After a few months, small issues can turn into big ones.”Explaining that a lack of communication, misunderstanding and excessive stress are some of the primary reasons that lead to stress and suicidal tendencies, doctors are of the opinion that working women are most vulnerable. “They have to face stress from office as well as home. Some of them have to take care of their in-laws and children, and deal with work pressure at the same time. The situation becomes worse when the husband does not cooperate,” Dr Vanapalli explains.
While symptoms of depression may begin from a person feeling low and emotionally empty, losing productivity to irritability, developing insomnia and lack of appetite and shunning company, Dr Alexander Gnanadurai, Associate Professor of Psychology at Madras Medical College, says the signs should not be taken lightly when they recur or persist for a long time, and the patient should be taken to a psychiatrist.
Depression has three stages—mild, moderate and severe. While the patient shows four types of symptoms in the first stage, it graduates to six in the next stage and eight in the subsequent one. “Usually, patients try to fight out the previous two stages, thinking they will recover eventually. When they do not, they come to us—when the depression has taken a severe form and become difficult to treat,” says Gnanadurai.
Social stigma associated with the disease is one of the reasons for the rise in cases of depression. “We have blood investigation to identify malaria; we have CT scan and other tests to identify disorders in the brain; whereas people don’t try to identify depression. There is a lot of stigma involved, as friends and relatives of the individual feel embarrassed. Even though a patient is depressed, he never admits it. Half of the people are not even aware that they need a psychiatrist. Those who are aware don’t seek help because they feel psychiatrist are mental doctors who prescribe sleeping pills,” says Vanapalli, adding, “Most people don’t know what depression is and just label people as depressed. There is a specific criterion to diagnose a patient with depression and if people are depressed for a day, then it is not depression. You can label an individual as a patient suffering from mild, moderate or severe depression only when he meets the criteria for diagnosis. The person has to be depressed for a minimum of two weeks to fall into the category.”
What is worse is that, if not treated in time, it may aggravate to a stage where a patient will reach a point of no return. For 16-year-old Pallavi Mishra, her world came to an end when she failed in her board exams. Her mark sheet carried more than just her scores. In that piece of paper, she held her death sentence. A week after her results were announced, she was found dead in her room. “Suicide is a big concern. It is the eighth highest killer in the world,” adds Parikh. According to Dr Ashok Pai, Chairman of the Karnataka Suicide and Mental Health Task Force, depressive people have a low threshold for emotional stress and may be suicidal. “Of a number of students who fail the SSLC exams, only a handful commit suicide. This is because their mind responds differently to stress,” he says.
Like herds of locusts feeding on crops, depression pulled the ropes around thousands of farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Economic burden was the reason that caused mass depression in the states and later the epidemic of suicide. Similarly, Tamil Nadu has been recording a significant number of suicides year after year. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figures for 2013, the state recorded 16,601 suicides, only 21 less than Maharashtra that occupied the first rank in the ignominious table. In other words, one in eight suicides in the country was reported in Tamil Nadu. The suicide rate was 24.3 per lakh population, alarmingly higher than the national average of 11. State capital Chennai has a higher suicide rate of 28.2, having recorded as many as 2,450 suicides in 2013. Curiously, Tamil Nadu has a large share of the suicides reported among children below 14 years and elderly above 60. Of the 2,891 cases of children suicides across the country, 345 or 11.9 per cent were from the state—only five less than Madhya Pradesh at the top. In Assam, around 15,000 suicides were reported between 2008 and 2012. As the NCRB does not directly attribute the suicides to depression, it is difficult to link the illness to the cause of deaths. However, as many as 26.3 per cent of the suicides were due to ‘illness’, of which maximum cases were due to ‘insanity’.
The treatments for depression, however, differ from patient to patient. “While patients with mild depression respond to counseling and psychotherapy, the ones with severe depression have to be administered antidepressants. The medication usually ranges from six months to one year. The suicidal ones, on the other hand, are counselled and in many cases given electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) to change their mind,” says Gnanadurai. But more than medication, it is the support of the family that matters the most. It was Padukone’s mother who saw the first signs of depression in her otherwise cheerful daughter and made her visit a counsellor for advice. A lot depends on the patient and his or her understanding of the condition, and a willingness to cooperate.
Affordable clean water is a crucial aspect of development. Yet, it finds less than adequate attention in the overall scheme of things, whether research, technology or policy.
Over 20 per cent of the Indian population has no access to safe water; about 8 crore people are affected by arsenic poisoning and 10 crore by fluoride. Diarrhoea kills 1,600 people a day. Water-related illnesses keep children away from schools and people from work. Some problems have persisted. Arsenic remains unsolved, even 100 years after its discovery in the environment. Fluorosis was discovered in India in 1937, but the problem persists. However, technology to make water safe, affordable and accessible for the majority has been available. The problem arises because the process of development contaminates water sources irreversibly. Unlike fire, water cannot purify itself. Humans can access and use only 0.5 per cent of the planet’s water. As we better understand the impact of pesticides or arsenic on health, we are continually revising water quality parameters, and many more chemicals are being regulated.
The limits of regulation can be as small as one in 100 crore water molecules. In other words, a water purifier must remove 1 contaminant from 100 crore molecules in minutes. If we had such efficient sorters to identify terrorists, the world would be a different place. Imagine an airport entrance closing on a terrorist while 100 crore people walk through. Water purifiers must do this level of screening fast, without error, at lowest power requirement, and with no waste. A demanding task indeed. Contaminated water requires energy to clean it. Desalination, using reverse osmosis (RO), costs about 4.5 units of electricity per 1,000 litres. It causes concentrated rejects and needs investments in membranes and infrastructure. RO rejects everything, including ions that are needed for biological functions. Many fear that depleting ions, some at ultra trace amounts, through the universal application of RO could have a disastrous effect on humans. The high energy usage impacts greenhouse gases, global warming, etc.
How do we reduce energy costs? One way is to use advanced materials to scavenge contaminants selectively. Another is to use selective catalysis on active surfaces, degrading toxic molecules to harmless species. Besides, there must also be efficient antimicrobial agents that don’t cause toxic by-products. One such antimicrobial agent is silver, which has been historically used. Alexander the Great stored water in silver vessels during campaigns to avoid waterborne diseases. Our laboratory work showed that a specific dose of silver ions, about 50 parts per billion, can cause effective antimicrobial activity. How can one do that at room temperature over years? Nanomaterials come to the rescue. However, nanoparticles have active surfaces and when exposed to normal water, minute impurities, even harmless ones, sit on these surfaces forming thin coatings that prevent silver ion dissolution. The purifier becomes ineffective, even though it contains silver. The lab then developed constant silver ion releasing materials by confining nanoparticles in nanoscale cages where water alone gets in, but no dirt. No nanoparticle gets out. The effect is a material with extended antimicrobial activity.
A recent twist in the story is that the ubiquitous carbonate ions can enhance the effect of silver. Carbonate causes some of the proteins from the bacterial membranes to be released, enhancing silver ion penetration. Thus, half the silver is enough for effective antimicrobial activity. Clean water means all contaminants are below permissible limits. Nanomaterials provide larger surface area per unit mass. They are ‘metastable’ and tend to acquire stability by reactions with contaminants. They can be contained in nanocages as before and contaminants such as arsenic can be removed selectively. By creating specific materials with controlled chemistry, a clean water solution for all contaminants can be found.
The solution needs to be deployed in various forms, at community (school, village, city) level and at home level. The silver solution is being installed in various parts of India, as small community units. A particularly important success is with arsenic — arsenic-free water is being delivered to over 1,50,000 people at 4 paise per litre. The quality of water changes fast, often within meters, and solutions need to be available as and when the problem is identified. Even without advanced technology, affordable local solutions could be available and must be adopted and used across geographies.
Ultimately nanotechnology and nanomaterial have to learn from nature. Halophytes (plants growing in waters of high salinity) live by filtering water. Coconuts store clean and tasty water even when grown in saline soil. They don’t use energy and reject no concentrates, unlike RO. However, there is no water filter yet designed with the technological inputs of coconut trees. Clean water is a mission that touches all aspects of society, linking grassroots technology to advanced research. Clean water must not just be a millennium development goal, but a basic human right that goes beyond national boundaries.
Some Apple Watch users who have tattoos are running into problems when using the device’s heart-rate monitor and other features, as it appears the ink in tattoos can interfere with the watch’s sensors.
This week, one person noted on the website Reddit that the Apple Watch’s auto-lock would engage when it was placed over an arm tattoo, possibly indicating that the device was not registering that it was being worn.
Tattoos are perhaps the ultimate form of self expression. Once done, they’re basically with you for good. But does all that ink doom you to life of being judged? Some studies say yes! Anthony looks at what having a tattoo says about you.
And the heart-rate monitor gives different readings when placed over tattooed and nontattooed skin, with very dark ink colors appearing to cause the most trouble, according to the website iMore.
The Apple Watch monitors heart rate in the same way as the Basis Peak, the Fitbit Surge and other wrist-worn fitness trackers — they all use a light that shines into the skin to measure pulse.
The light strikes the blood vessels in your wrist, and then sensors on the devices detect how much light is reflected back, which lets the devices detect the changes in blood volume that occur each time your heart beats, pushing blood through your body.
The Apple Watch has an LED light that flashes many times per second to detect your heartbeat, the company says.
However, changes to the skin, including permanent tattoos, can affect the heart-rate sensor’s performance, Apple says. “The ink, pattern and saturation of some tattoos can block light from the sensor, making it difficult to get reliable readings,” Apple’s support website states.
If users are experiencing issues with the heart-rate monitor because of tattoos or other factors not related to the device itself, they can use an external heart-rate monitor (such as a chest-strap monitor) and connect it to the Apple Watch via Bluetooth, the company says.
Not all wrist tattoos will interfere with the Apple Watch’s sensors — iMore found that lighter-colored tattoos did not disrupt readings as much as darker-colored tattoos, and that patterned tattoos did not appear to cause problems. The type and design of a person’s tattoo may determine whether he or she experiences problems with the device, according to iMore.
A 36-year-old man has undergone the world’s first successful head transplant. The ground-breaking operation took a team of surgeons nineteen hours to complete and has allowed the patient to be cancer-free.
Paul Horner, who was diagnosed with bone cancer five years ago, was on the verge of death when he was approved for the controversial and possibly deadly operation.
Doctor Tom Downey, who was part of the South African team who carried out the operation, told CNN he is thrilled about the results.
“It’s a massive breakthrough,” Downey said. “We’ve proved that it can be done – we can give someone a brand new body that is just as good, or better, than their previous one. The success of this operation leads to infinite possibilities.”
Surgeons at Charlotte Maxexe Johannesburg Academic Hospital inJohannesburg carried out the operation in February but waited until they could confirm it was successful before they made any public statement.
Downey spoke to reporters about the complexity behind the first ever head transplant.
“This procedure is another excellent example of how medical research, technical know-how and patient-centered care can be combined in the quest to relieve human suffering.”
The operation was led by Professor Myron Danus and took place on February 10th of this year.
“Our goal is for Horner to be fully functional in two years and so far we are very pleased by his rapid recovery,” said Danus. “Before the operation, Horner’s body was riddled with cancer and he had less than a month to live. We were fortunate enough to find a donor body; a 21-year-old man who has been brain dead from a serious car accident that happened in 2012. The boys body worked just fine, but his brain was not functioning whatsoever, and there was absolutely no chance of recovery.” Danus continued, “We received approval from the young man’s parents to use their sons body to do the operation. They were extremely happy their son could save a life even in the vegetated state that he was in.”
Doctors say Horner has made an 85% recovery; walking, talking and doing the normal things a healthy individual does.
The Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, nicknamed Joburg Gen is an accredited general hospital in Parktown, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. It has 1,088 beds. The hospital’s professional and support staff exceeds 4,000 people.
Even though Horner lives in the United States, the first-of-its-kind operation had to be done overseas in a location where the medical guidelines are not as strict.
Watch the video. URL: https://youtu.be/5_sCUM0PfOk
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