63 Years Ago, A Cat Named Felicette Became The First Feline In Space - NDTV

On Oct. 18, 1963, a cat went to space! Félicette was a French "catstronaut" who became the first and only feline to fly to space. Here's why it mattered.

Much like sushi or political humor, badly needed donor organs tend to have a pretty short shelf life. By current estimates, vital organs like a heart or a lung need to be transplanted into their waiting human recipient within six hours or less, while the most hardy of these organs, the kidney, can only remain viable for up to 36 hours before surgery. These unforgiving expirations dates have helped keep over 100,000 Americans (and counting) stuck on the waiting list for a new organ—but surgeons and medical researchers at the University of Minnesota have just reported a breakthrough that might finally get this line moving. A university team, co-led by transplant surgeon Erik Finger, says it has effectively kept pig kidneys in cold storage for months, and in one case over a year, managing to gently thaw, test, and successfully transplant these warmed-over organs into test pig recipients. The research, published as a pre-print with bioRxiv while it awaits peer review, confirmed that the once-frozen organs had both regained their color and helped the test pigs produce urine: critical signs that restored blood flow and organ function had been achieved.

In August 2025, researchers reported finding traces of a comet that may have exploded over Earth roughly 12,800 years ago, possibly triggering a prolonged cold spell known as the Younger Dryas. The discovery, made in sediments from Baffin Bay near Greenland, appeared to offer new support for one of archaeology and climate science’s most controversial theories. The journal PLOS One retracted the study, citing serious problems with the dating of sediments, the identification of supposed cosmic material, and the reliability of the research.

MELBOURNE, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Researchers in Australia have developed a way to precisely target the "unique molecular fingerprint" created when two genes become abnormally fused together, potentially paving the way for more personalized cancer treatments. Researchers from Australia's Peter MacCallum Cancer Center and collaborating institutions described the method in Science Advances, aiming to develop programmable cancer medicines tailored to individual tumors' genetic abnormalities, according to a statement released recently by Peter Mac. The new strategy can precisely target and silence gene fusions, stopping their cancer-driving effects and potentially offering a new, highly personalized approach to treating a wide range of fusion-driven cancers, according to the study. ■

Voyager imaging team member joins The Reg's Kettle podcast to talk about his role in the mission as probe approaches light day's distance from Earth It's been nearly half a century since the Voyager probes launched from Earth on a mission to explore the outer solar system, and they're still running. You can listen to the latest episode of The Kettle on this page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. You can also subscribe on those platforms to be notified when a new episode goes live.

A daily step count is a simple way to keep track of how much we move. It may also offer clues about our attention and decision-making skills. Researchers examined activity records and cognitive test results from 3,093 US adults across 14 years to explore how everyday movement relates to thinking. They also looked at blood pressure. "Across several cognitive domains, individuals in the more active groups tended to perform better on the cognitive measures," psychiatrist Olaoluwa Okusaga of Baylor College of Medicine told ScienceAlert. The team used Fitbit records and blood pressure measurements from the US National Institutes of Health's All of Us Research Program. Participants ranged from 18 to 93 years old, with an average age of about 58. Many earlier studies relied on people reporting their own activity levels, which can be inaccurate. Wearable devices gave the researchers an objective measure of daily movement. The records covered a 14-year window, from 2009 to 2023. Not everyone had data for the whole period, so the researchers estimated each person's activity pattern from the measurements available.