Why it matters: The patient, 57-year-old David Bennett, is still doing well three days later, proving for the first time a "genetically-modified animal heart can function like a human heart without immediate rejection by the body," UMMC said. The surgery has the potential to provide hope to hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide, the New York Times notes.
Last year featured the second-highest number of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters on record in the contiguous U.S., according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Why it matters: The extreme events of 2021 affected the public health of millions of Americans, destroyed homes and upended livelihoods, and demonstrated the escalating human and financial costs of global warming.
The past seven years have been the seven hottest on record, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, which released new global temperature data this morning.
Why it matters: The data shows in vivid detail that, even though 2021 was relatively cool compared to other recent years, it still ranked as the fifth warmest year and continued a trend driven by ever-growing amounts of greenhouse gases in the air.
