A photo of the world’s first fully titanium heart that was successfully transplanted into a human patient.
In a world-first, an Australian man in his 40s became the first person to leave the hospital with a titanium artificial heart that kept him alive for 105 days. The BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart, a compact device with a single levitating rotor, pumped blood through his body until a donor heart became available. Without it, doctors say he would not have survived the wait. Now, after a successful transplant, he’s back to living life in ways he hadn’t been able to for years.
This groundbreaking device, developed by Australian biomedical engineer Daniel Timms, has been over two decades in the making—originally inspired by his father’s heart attack. Unlike traditional artificial hearts with multiple moving parts, BiVACOR’s design is nearly frictionless, relying on magnetic levitation to eliminate wear and tear. It’s small enough to fit inside a woman or child, yet powerful enough to support an adult during exercise.
Only about 6,000 heart transplants occur globally each year, leaving millions in need. While BiVACOR is still in clinical trials, this sixth successful implantation—and the first outside the U.S.—marks a major step forward. Four more devices are set to be implanted in Australia this year, bringing hope that this “virtually unbreakable” heart could soon become a viable alternative for patients who can’t wait for a donor.
Cameramen filming before we had drones
Unfinished Portrait of Mariana de Silva y Sarmiento by Anton Raphael Mengs, 1775
“How did World War II end?” in the Korean history textbook
How to identify undercover cops
Kidney stones under an electron microscope
NASA found a perfectly cut, trillion-ton rectangular iceberg floating off of the Larsen C ice shelf in 2018.
In Japan there is a custom of parking further away from the exit if you are early, this would allow people who are late to save time in finding a parking space and distance to travel
A lot of ingredients in this "Chicken"
Artists’ pay rates for performing at Woodstock in 1969
They should put this up in every high school
Basketball players standing next to cheerleaders
A Massive 2700-Year-Old, 18-Ton Statue Of An Assyrian Deity that was excavated in Iraq In November 2023
Working mobile phones smuggled into a prison
This is what happens to aluminium when a 1/2 inch piece of plastic makes contact at 15 000 mph in space.
The border between the Brazilian city of Manaus and the Amazon rainforest
Saturn taken by the James Webb Space Telescope
Related Posts:
