The Download: lasers for nuclear fuel, and organ preservation advances

This is today’s edition of The Download , our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

How lasers could help provide fuel for nuclear reactors Nuclear power provides about 9% of global electricity today, and that fraction could tick up as countries look to build new reactors.

New, cheaper methods to obtain fuel could help ensure that those nuclear projects stay on track. One of those methods is called laser enrichment.

It allows you to separate out the material you want (in this case, uranium) from others in a mixture of old waste. A company called Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) is about to start testing whether the technology works at commercial scale.

Read our story about their efforts . —Casey Crownhart The quest to keep organs alive outside the body It’s super difficult to freeze organs. Once ice forms in them, they’re done.

The ice crystals create all kinds of damage and render the organs unusable. That hasn’t stopped many researchers from trying.

In new research, one team has been able to supercool the kidneys of pigs and preserve them for days. The kidneys survived being stored at −4 °C (25 °F) and eventually reimplanted bac

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  The Download: lasers for nuclear fuel, and organ preservation advances