96. Universal Blood Type Organs, Rapid Hydrogen Fuel Generation, Startup Drilling For Geothermal Energy

News: <p><a href='https://interestingengineering.com/universal-blood-type-organs'>Scientists create universal blood type organs for transplant</a> | Interesting Engineering (01:34)</p> <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">There are 106,435 people in the United States waiting for an organ transplant.</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Someone in need of a heart or lung spends an average of four months on the recipient list before a suitable organ becomes available.<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Waiting for a kidney typically lasts five years.</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">These averages don't reflect the patient's blood type</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Marcelo Cypel, a thoracic surgeon, tells IE that people with type O blood are 20 percent more likely to die while waiting for a lung than patients with type A blood. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">45 percent of people in the U.S. having type O blood</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">The reason for that disparity lies in the immune system<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Someone with type O blood has an immune system that will attack a transplanted organ that comes from a donor of any other blood type.</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">The differences in blood type can be fatal: A blood transfusion of just 50 milliliters of incompatible blood can kill a person.</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">The separation by blood type also leads to missed opportunities for a new lease on life if someone has the wrong blood type.<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Cypel expands on that stating, “There are situations where we may get a B donor, but we don't have a B recipient … In that case, today, we just don't use that organ; that organ gets buried.”</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">In a recent study, researchers provide a potential solution: They used a combination of technologies to convert eight type-A lungs into type-O lungs, which are far less likely to be attacked by a patient's immune system, regardless of