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The Food and Drug Administration has given two biotechnology companies approval for clinical trials that will transplant organs from genetically modified pigs into patients with kidney failure, an experimental but potentially groundbreaking innovation for thousands of Americans on the waiting list for organ transplants. (Pannett, 2/4)

A new high-tech help for young heart patients has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Doctors say this will allow them to save more lives, an important milestone as we kick off American Heart Month. It's a little device with a big job. "It does all the work for your heart," Katrina Penney, 21, said. "It did save my life, 100%." It is the Impella 5.5 – the world's smallest heart pump that helps blood circulate. (Stahl and Kuhn, 2/3)

Cognitively normal human brain samples collected at autopsy in early 2024 contained more tiny shards of plastic than samples collected eight years prior, according to a new study. Overall, cadaver brain samples contained seven to 30 times more tiny shards of plastic than their kidneys and liver, said co-lead study author Matthew Campen, Regents’ Professor and professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. (LaMotte, 2/3)

People diagnosed with severe headaches may be at an increased risk of suicide. This is the warning from a team of researchers from the U.S. and Denmark who studied the suicide risk of nearly 120,000 people with a headache disorder, in comparison with their counterparts with no such diagnosis. (Randall, 2/3)

This winter’s Covid wave in the United States has been the gentlest to date, in a welcome reprieve. According to wastewater data aggregated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, not only was there less Covid circulating over the holidays than in previous years, but there was also less virus in the wastewater than in all the summer waves the program has tracked. (Paris, 2/4)

The proportion of people being diagnosed with lung cancer who have never smoked is increasing, with air pollution an “important factor”, the World Health Organization’s cancer agency has said. Lung cancer in people who have never smoked cigarettes or tobacco is now estimated to be the fifth highest cause of cancer deaths worldwide, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). (Gregory, 2/3)

Chappell Roan won best new artist at the Grammys and used her speech to hold record labels accountable. After thanking her friends, family and team, the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer said, “I told myself that if I ever won a Grammy and got to stand up here before the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels in the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and health care, especially developing artists.” (Shanfeld, 2/2)