Tag Archives: performed

The ancient Maya performed cremations for deceased rulers in honor of a new dynasty’s succession

Posted on by
Reply

Ornaments found with burned royal bodies in Mayan temple

Dr. Christina T. Halperin

About 1,200 years ago, the bones of several royals were burned in a Mayan city and discarded unceremoniously in the foundations of a new temple. These recently discovered ruins may represent a turbulent period in the Maya world, with violent political changes.

“When we first started excavating, we had no idea what this was,” he says. Christina Halperin at the University of Montreal. She and her colleagues made the discovery in 2022 at the Ucanal ruins in modern-day Guatemala.

Researchers found that beneath the structure of the pyramid temple, sediments were mixed with the rock. The deposit contained the bones of at least four people and thousands of ornamental fragments and beads. The bones of the two people and many of their ornaments showed signs of being burned at high temperatures.

It was clear this was no ordinary body, Halperin said. However, it was the nosepiece and obsidian eyeballs of the burial masks that revealed them as royal individuals. She says it “took forever” to sift these clues from the ashes.

Despite their apparently noble origins, the charred bodies of the royal family were not buried carefully and were “just dumped there,” Halperin said. Radiocarbon dating of the bones and ashes showed that at least one of him had died a century before his remains were burned between 773 and 881 AD. This suggests that the bones were exhumed from a previous burial and then burned.

This timing coincides with the rise of a new Ukanal leader, Papumaril, an outsider who assumed power amid the widespread dissolution of Maya society. In that context, the researchers found that the deposits were linked to the so-called “Burning Ceremony,” a Maya ritual that dramatically marked the destruction and demise of the previous dynasty and the prominence of the next. I think it may be a product. “This ritual seems to be both an act of worship and an act of destruction,” Halperin says.

simon martin Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say the discovery provides vivid physical evidence for the theory that influences from outside cultures contributed to fundamental changes in Maya society during this period. “These are our ancestors. They are our ancestors,” he says. “Doing something like this will ruin everything.”

topic:

Source: www.newscientist.com

First-ever pig kidney transplant performed on a living human

Posted on by
Reply

The kidney transplant surgery is the first of its kind in a living person.

Michelle Rose/Massachusetts General Hospital

Surgeons successfully transplanted a pig kidney into a 62-year-old man with end-stage renal disease. Recipient Richard Suleiman is recovering well and is expected to be discharged from the hospital soon, just a few days after surgery.

Is this your first pig kidney transplant?

This is the first time a pig kidney has been transplanted into a living human, marking a major milestone in the field of xenotransplantation, or transplanting animal organs into humans.

“This successful transplant is the culmination of decades of hard work by thousands of scientists and doctors.” Tatsuo Kawai At Massachusetts General Hospital statement. “Our hope is that this transplant approach will provide a lifeline to the millions of patients around the world suffering from kidney failure.”

However, strictly speaking, this is not the first time a kidney has been transplanted from a pig to a human. This surgery has been performed five times in the past, each time on a person declared brain dead and placed on life support. The most recent of these was conducted by Robert Montgomery and colleagues at New York University Langone Health in July 2023. The kidney continued to function for over a month with no signs of rejection or infection.

When was the surgery performed?

Kawai and his colleagues performed the surgery on March 16th. reported that the procedure lasted four hours, and shortly thereafter the kidneys began producing urine and the waste product creatinine. new york times. Suleiman was also able to stop dialysis, which is a further indication that his kidneys are functioning properly.

Where do pig kidneys come from?

The organs were donated by the pharmaceutical company EGenesis. The company breeds pigs that are genetically engineered to carry certain human genes and lack a specific set of pig genes that are harmful to humans. These genetic modifications reduce the chance of transplant rejection, where the immune system attacks the organ and causes it to malfunction. Suleiman is also being given a cocktail of immunosuppressants to further reduce this risk. So far, there are no signs of rejection and Suleiman is able to walk on his own. His doctors hope he will be discharged soon.

What do we know about the recipient?

Suleiman has type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney disease. He had previously received a human kidney from a donor in December 2018. However, the organ showed signs of malfunctioning after about five years. He started dialysis in May last year, but complications arose, and he needed to go to the hospital every two weeks. This seriously affected his quality of life while awaiting his second transplant.

is more than 100,000 people in the US They are waiting for organ transplants, and 17 of them die every day. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the experimental transplant for Suleiman due to a lack of other treatment options.

“I saw it as a way not only to help me but also to give hope to the thousands of people who need transplants to survive,” Suleiman said in a statement.

Have xenotransplant surgeries involving other organs been performed?

Only two other people received xenotransplants, and both received genetically modified pig hearts. The first, a man named David Bennett, died two months later from complications believed to be caused by a swine virus called porcine cytomegalovirus. So scientists genetically inactivated a virus similar to the pig virus from which Suleiman's kidneys came.

The second recipient, a man named Lawrence Fawcett, died six weeks later from transplant rejection.

topic:

Source: www.newscientist.com