An experimental surgical procedure that is helping people have children after treatment for bowel or rectal cancer.
Radiation and chemo can have quite harmful side effects that damage the uterus and ovaries. Surgeons are pioneering a possible solution: simply sewing those organs together during cancer treatment. Once the treatment is finished, they can put the ovaries and fallopian tubes as well as the uterus back into place.
Looks like it’s working! Last week, a team in Switzerland shared the news that a baby was born after his mother had the procedure. Baby Lucien was the fifth baby and the first in Europe to be born after the surgery, and at least three other babies have been born since then. Read the full story.
-Jessica Hamzelau
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology ReviewWeekly Biotech Newsletter. To get it in your inbox every Thursday, and to be the first to read articles like this, Sign up here.
Bangladesh’s textile manufacturing industry is going green
Pollution from textile production – dyes, chemicals and heavy metals – is common in the waters of the Buriganga River as it flows through Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is one of many losses to the textile sector, once synonymous with tragedy: In 2013, the eight-story Rana Plaza factory building collapsed, killing 1,134 people and injuring nearly 2,500 others.
But things have started changing. In recent years the country has become a leader in “frugal” factories that use a combination of resource-efficient technologies to cut waste, conserve water and build resilience against climate impacts and global supply disruptions.
Hundreds of factories along the Buriganga and elsewhere in Bangladesh are beginning to piece together a new story woven with green threads. Read the full story.
-Zakir Hussain Chaudhary
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