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First Successful Head Transplant Carried Out In China

The world's first human head transplant has been carried out on a corpse in China, according to an Italian Professor Sergio Canavero.

Dr Xiaoping Ren, who grafted a head onto the body of a monkey in 2016, carried out the operation, which took 18 hours.

Italian Professor Canavero, who is the director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, announced the success in a press conference in Vienna.

The professor said: "The first human transplant on human cadavers has been done.

"A full head swap between brain dead organ donors is the next stage and that is the final step for the formal head transplant for a medical condition which is imminent."

It had previously been hoped that 30-year-old Valery Spiridonov would be the first human to undergo the operation but the Russian decided he did not want to experience the surgery.

Spiridonov had volunteered because he suffers from Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, which causes severe spinal muscular atrophy, and he was willing to try anything to prolong his life.

There had been an angry backlash to the potential surgery from religious groups, who said it was going against God.

Spiridonov was fully prepared for the body to reject his head but it was also possible that fusing his head with another body - including the spinal cord and jugular vein - might result in never-before experienced levels of insanity.

Doctor Canavero said before the operation that he was anticipating it to be a 36-hour procedure that would involve 150 doctors and nurses.

Arthur Caplan, director of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Centre, had previously said that the bodies of head transplant patients "would end up being overwhelmed with different pathways and chemistry than they are used to and they'd go crazy".

Credit: PA. Valery Spiridonov

In 1970, a head transplant was successfully performed on a monkey. Well, it was sort of successful. The monkey lived, but only for eight days.

The body rejected the new head and the monkey was left unable to breathe or move because the spinal cord of the head and body weren't properly connected.

Hopefully, technology has advanced enough in the past 45 years.

Gong Shou Dao (GSD) Features the Top 3 Martial Arts Choreographers

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Gong Shou Dao (GSD), a new short film produced by Jet Li, features the top three Chinese martial arts choreographers. The film is expected to demonstrate the most astonishing and sophisticated aspects of Chinese martial arts.

A movie poster published on Jack Ma’s blog made a big splash in the fields of action movie-making industry and Chinese martial arts.

GSD is a short film made for promoting the culture of Taiji. Jack Ma will play the role of the leading actor in this movie together with 11 other famous Kung Fu icons representing different martial art disciplines. The short film is made as a tribute to all master kung fu predecessors and for promoting the excellence of traditional Chinese culture.

Participation of Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, in the cast will undoubtedly maximize the understanding and value of Taiji culture throughout the world due to Ma’s worldwide influence. Since all the stars performing in the film are well trained in martial arts, the super cast guarantees the quality of the movie.

For most of the fans of action movies, the beauty and the strength of actions presented through a film are the main attractions. As a result, the martial arts choreography serves as the key in the success of an action movie.

Currently the top three master-level Chinese martial arts choreographers in

the world are Yuen Woo-Ping, Sammo Hung, and Tony Ching. In the filming of GSD,

the expertise of these top three Chinese martial arts masters were integrated.

Sammo Hung is a Chinese kung fu actor who has a solid foundation in the practice of kung fu. He is noted for the choreography of kung fu sparring with a touch of occasional humor

and imagination. The master’s top action movies include “Ip Man“, “Detective Dee

and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame“, and “Once Upon a Time in China and

America” etc.

martial arts Choreographers gong shou dao gsd

Yuen Woo-Ping served as the martial arts choreographer in classical action films

including “Once Upon a Time in China II”, “The Tai-Chi Master“, “Fist of Legend”

and Hollywood classic “The Matrix”. His choreography of actions is known for its

reflection of reality. His design of actions is characterized by swiftness, exactness,

and ruthlessness. Yuen’s brand of actions delivers visual punch to the audience.

Tony Ching is well-known for his martial arts choreography of the classical movie

“New Dragon Gate Inn“. His choreography features beauty and elegance. He used slow motions to magnify many graceful actions which helped form the image of martial art

characters and classical actions. Ching’s other signature works include

“Swordsman II” and “Hero” both starring our founder Jet Li.

The three master choreographers worked out different stereotypes of legendary

martial art masters Zhang Sanfeng, Ip Man, and Ling Wu Chung, respectively.

By integrating the various creative styles of these three directors, the resulted

film is expected to showcase scenes of ruthless sparring, standard martial

art techniques, and seamless elegance. The fans may expect a creative

work featuring seemingly familiar feelings and ultimate duels.

According to Jet Li, all actors and directors worked pro bono in the making

of this film as a tribute to Chinese culture and all the Chinese martial arts

masters past and present. The film is made as an endeavor to share Chinese

culture with the world.

Jack Ma said, “No further development will be made for a society or individual if there is no pursuit of culture or innovation.” The responsibility and obligation of this generation is to let the world know about the excellence of the Chinese culture and share the thoughts and strength contained in traditional Chinese philosophy, Ma stated. “This cultural heritage not only belongs to China, but also to the world,” Ma added.

The three Chinese martial arts choreographers have been making extraordinary contributions to the promotion and interpretation of martial arts. The collaboration of the three masters marked a milestone in Chinese action movie making industry. They are determined to produce a legendary new generation martial arts film.

Self-driving bus involved in crash less than two hours after Las Vegas launch

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It took less than two hours for Las Vegas’s brand new self-driving shuttle to end up in a crash on Wednesday – thanks to a human.

The autonomous bus made its debut on public roads around the so called Innovation District in downtown Las Vegas in front of cameras and celebrities, dubbed America’s first self-driving shuttle pilot project geared toward the public. But within two hours it had already been involved in a minor crash with a lorry. No injuries were reported.

Jenny Wong, a passenger on the shuttle at the time of the crash, told local news station KSNV: “The shuttle just stayed still. And we were like, it’s going to hit us, it’s going to hit us. And then it hit us.

“The shuttle didn’t have the ability to move back. The shuttle just stayed still.”

Las Vegas police officer Aden Ocampo-Gomez said the truck’s driver was at fault for the crash and was cited for illegal backing.

“The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that its sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident,” the city said in a statement. “Unfortunately the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle. Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has, the accident would have been avoided.”

The oval-shaped shuttle can seat up to eight people and has an attendant and computer monitor, but no steering wheel or brake pedals. Developed by French company Navya, it uses GPS, electronic kerb sensors and other technology to find its way at no more than 15mph.

Before it crashed, dozens of people had lined up to get a free trip on a 0.6-mile loop around Fremont East, Las Vegas, including Nascar driver Danica Patrick and magic duo Penn and Teller. City spokesman Jace Radke said the shuttle took two more loops after the crash.

The year-long pilot project, sponsored by AAA Northern California, Nevada and Utah, is expected to carry 250,000 people. The AAA said human error was responsible for more than 90% of the 30,000 deaths on US roads in 2016, and that robotic cars could help reduce the number of incidents.

Google sibling Waymo announced on Tuesday that it is launching a fully autonomous Uber-like ride-hailing service with no human driver behind the wheel in Phoenix, Arizona in the next few months, making it the first such service accessible to the public without no one to take control in an emergency.

A Common Contraceptive Is Linked to a "Stunning" Reduction in Cervical Cancer Risk

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One of the longest-lasting and most effective forms of female contraception may be offering an unexpected health benefit to the women who use it.

A new analysis of intrauterine devices (IUDs) has found women using the contraceptive were significantly less likely to develop cervical cancer, with IUDs reducing incidences of the cancer by approximately one-third.

"The pattern we found was stunning. It was not subtle at all," says preventive medicine specialist Victoria Cortessis from the University of Southern California.

"The possibility that a woman could experience some help with cancer control at the same time she is making contraception decisions could potentially be very, very impactful."

Cortessis and fellow researchers reviewed data from 16 observational studies monitoring more than 12,000 women, identifying both participants' use of IUDs and their incidence of cervical cancer, which is the fourth-most common cancer in women worldwide.

What they found was that among women who took part in the studies, those using IUDs were 36 percent less likely to get cervical cancer than women who didn't use the contraceptive.

Of course, meta-analyses like this are only observational in nature – neither the new research nor the studies it draws from are demonstrating any kind of causative effect.

But, nonetheless, it's a striking, unexpected result that the researchers say definitely warrants further investigation.

"It looks real. It smells real," Cortessis told Live Science.

"[B]ut to be really convinced, we need to go back and do studies to find a mechanism."

What that mechanism is exactly, nobody's sure, but the team speculates the placement of an IUD may somehow stimulate an immune response in the cervix, leading the body to protect itself against any existing human papillomavirus (HPV) infection – the virus that causes more than 70 percent of all cervical cancer cases.

"[Previous] data say the presence of the IUD in the uterus stimulates an immune response, and that immune response very, very substantially destroys sperm and keeps sperm from reaching the egg," Cortessis explained to HealthDay.

"It stands to reason the IUD might influence other immune phenomenon."

Another hypothesis is that when IUDs are removed from the body, a scraping effect could take out infected cells at the same time, which could potentially help lower the risk of cancerous tissue developing.

Regardless of what makes the reduced cancer risk happen, the sheer size of this gap seen in the data means it's something health researchers will want to look into.

"I would be shocked if it's not a real phenomenon," Cortessis told Time.

"We need to figure out what's going on mechanistically and do some fine tuning and see what kind of use could prevent cervical cancer and integrate that with contraceptive counselling."

The researchers are keen to emphasise that their findings shouldn't be taken as a recommendation that women should use IUDs to lower their chances of getting cervical cancer.

The best way to do that is to have regular cervical screenings and be vaccinated against HPV.

"Screening is everything," Cortessis told Newsweek.

"If a woman has one lifetime screening visit in her entire life, her risk is much lower."

The findings are reported in Obstetrics & Gynecology.