Word: organism
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Indeed, a recent survey showed that most people will accept a mortality rate for living organ donors as high as 20%. The odds, thankfully, aren't nearly that bad. For kidney donors, for example, the risk ranges from 1 in 2,500 to 1 in 4,000 for a healthy volunteer. That helps explain why nearly 40% of kidney transplants in the U.S. come from living donors...
...operation to transplant a liver, however, is a lot trickier than one to transplant a kidney. Not only is the liver packed with blood vessels, but it also makes lots of proteins that need to be produced in the right ratios for the body to survive. When organs from the recently deceased are used, the surgeon gets to pick which part of the donated liver looks the best--and to take as much of it as needed. Assuming all goes well, a healthy liver can grow back whatever portion of the organ is missing, sometimes within a month...
...Five guys were in the band. We all had the same outfits--a royal blue jacket with a black velvet collar and black pants. And we played a mix of Beatles songs and surf instrumentals. There were probably 150 to 200 people in the audience. I played an organ and sang only incidentally. But I was one of the guys in the band who sang the best, so they gave me a microphone. I loved the noise we were making. It clicked...
...science cured every known disease of the elderly, you'd add only 15 years to current life expectancy," says Dr. Leonard Hayflick, professor of anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of How and Why We Age. Accidents and age-related loss of organ function would then start claiming the old--though some, at least in theory, would reach the 125-year mark...
...loved one has a heart that's failing or kidneys that are giving out, you already know the grim statistics on transplants. A new organ can turn a death sentence into a full and healthy life--but the supply of replacement body parts lags far behind the demand. According to the nonprofit United Network for Organ Sharing, which maintains the nation's transplant waiting lists, nearly 80,000 patients in the U.S. alone are standing by for new organs--and more than 5,000 people die each year before their turn comes...