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by Renee Ebersol. Roughly six hundred miles off the coast of mainland Ecuador, conservation biologist d Bourzma cruised in an inflatable zodiac through the blue waters surrounding Bartolomy Island, a small part of the Pacific Ocean archipelago known as the Galopicus Islands. She was joined by several other scientists, all of whom scanned the shoreline for an elusive black and

white seabird standing about a foot and half tall. Galopicus penguins are the rarest and among the smallest penguins in the world, but most notably, they are the only ones living at the equator, existing on these volcanic islands in the blazing hot sun. How could you not fall in love with these birds? Asked the seventy eight year old director of the University of Washington's Center for ecosystem Sentinels

and a national geographic explorer. They're comical, they're curious, their enduring, endearing. Borizma suddenly pointed to five penguins near a cave, then another, and another seven in total once the goat got close enough to shore. Once the boat got close enough to shore, two Ecuadorians veterinarian m Gavidens Escobar and park guard Marlon Ramone,

leaped out, easily scaling the sharp and slippery rocks. In less than five minutes, Escobar was back lightly gripping a penguin under its chin with one hand and propping its feet in his other. He passed it to Boorzma, who was ready with her calipers to ascertain the size of the bird's bill and feet. Then she pulled out her yellow tape measure to discern the length of the bird's wingspan.

We're measuring him for a suit, she joked. These were the first steps in the process of recording information that allows researchers to monitor the health of the colony in the area. Next, Boorzma cinched a red cord around the penguin's chest and attached it to a scale. Now the flightless bird was dangling in mid air, flippers whirling. That's a big one, she told her colleague Caroline Capello, a wildlife ecologist who has studied penguins in the galopagus alongside

Borizma for more than a decade. Capello recorded the data. A little more than five pounds and likely a male. Freeing the feisty bird from the cord, Boorizma then secured its head between her left fore arm and knee in a well practiced maneuver to protect her legs from painful bites. You're all right, You're all right, she told the squirming penguin. You're so soft, Yes, you are. Calm down. We're going

to let you go in just a minute. The penguin's flippers thick at the top and tapered to a thin trailing edge, ideally shaped for soaring through water or in great condition, she noted, smoothing them with her hands protected by beige wool fingerless gloves, she affixed a tiny metal tag into the webbing of its left foot and gently set it down on the edge of the zodiac, seemingly unfazed by the ordeal, the penguin surveyed the water, then leaned forward and quietly plopped into the Pacific to again

swim among green sea turtles and marine iguanas. Touching a bird like that is electric brsmas sad as she watched it vanish beneath the surface. It is also an increasingly rare opportunity for researchers. Today, Galopicus penguins join the more than half of all penguin species that are classified as endangered or vulnerable, imperiled by such threats as warming temperatures, overfishing,

habitat destruction, and pollution. Gurzma, who has been called the Jane Goodall of penguins, consider these birds to be marine sentinels or canaries in a coal mine, describing how one species rapid decline signals a significant natural or human made

change happening within its environment. Still, she believes that the species has the capacitated to hang on, in part because researchers continue to gain a better understanding of how these creatures leverage centuries of adaptations to be resilient in the increasingly unpredicable world around them. Fifty four years ago, when I started this. I thought Galopicus penguins would be gone

by now, she said, But they're still here. The Galopicus penguins evolutionary journey illustrates how environmental pressures shape species over millions of years. Genetic studies suggest they descended from Humboldt penguins roughly two million years ago the Pleistocene epoch, a

period marked by well wide ranging climatic changes. The earliest Galopitus penguin ancestors probably came to the islands by surfing the northbound Humboldt Current that brings cold, nutrient rich water along the coast of South America, likely settling on the western part of the archipelago on Isabella and Ferdnana Islands, the penguins found plentiful food and shelter. While the Humboldt and another current, the Cromwells, still flow here, they now

bring nutrients and food intermittently in duration and intensity. One of the significant factors to how Galopicus penguins adapted to living in this warm climate is that they nest in cool, shady crevices on the islands. The coastlines are sculpted by explosive volcanic eruptions, and erosion, providing cracks and lava tunnels

where punguins can avoid overheating. Their small dature allows them to squeeze into these dark spaces where they and their chicks hide from predators such as Galopicus snakes and sally light foot crabs. With a thinner layer of fat and fewer feathers than most other penguins, these birds evolved for life in the subtropics. Galopicus penguins, along with the Humboldt, Megellanic and African species, belong to a group known as banded penguins for the distinctive black and white patterning around

their chests and heads. They all live in warmer climates and regulate their body temperature by panting similar to a dog on a hot day, and they stand with their flippers outstretched to release heat. White feathers on Galopicus penguins faces and their featherless ankles and feet further help shunt warmth from their stout little bodies. The birds can also

shed feathers around their faces during hot periods. But the adaptation that sets Galopicus penguins apart is their flexibility as to when they mold replace feathers and breed, rather than having one fixed molting and mating season as other penguin species do. The timing is based on whether enough nutrients are being delivered from cold ocean currents and upwellings to give them energy to replace their feathers, which, unlike other penguin cycles, occurs before breeding and up to twice a year.

They can delay molting and mating until food is available and there's a better chance of successfully starting a family. All this adds up to a boom or bust way of life. By tracking and measuring Galopicus penguins weight and population numbers over decades, Burizma made the incredible discovery that their breeding is tightly in sync with the rhythms of

al Ninos and La Ninas. The birds thrive during La Nina conditions when there are strong currents of cold, nutrient rich water flowing north, providing plentiful fish, squid, and crustaceans for the penguins. When Al Nino's warm weather in the sunde Central and Eastern Pacific displaces the cool currents, it

drastically reduces upwelling and their food supply. In years when provisions are scarce, some penguins starve and breeding comes to a standstill, it could take decades for the population to recover. During a severe El Nino in the early nineteen eighties, the population fell by more than half. Now, as global temperatures heat up, el Ninos are becoming more frequent and extreme, threatening to further reduce the availability of nutrients, while rising

sea levels are inundating nesting sites. Still, Borisma has come to believe that even with the increasing frequency of El nino's and extreme weather events, some Galopogus penguins will persist because their ecosystem is also supported by periodic deep water upwellings bringing pulses of nutrients to sustain the food chain. But if for some reason the currents change and productivity goes down, she said, they'll have trouble because there will be nowhere left for them to go but Peru or

Chile and NAT's a long swim. Wursma estimates there are maybe two thousand Galopicus penguins left, less than half as many as there were fifty years ago when she started her trailblazing research. But she believes that a couple of crucial actions can protect their future. In order to survive and thrive. Gallipicus penguins need humans to help them overcome two major threats introduced predators mainly rats and cats, and

natural nesting areas becoming increasingly inhospitable. Solving the first issue is fairly straightforward. Cats and rats arrived in the Galopicus nearly two hundred years ago. With sailors and whalers. They can easily scale difficult terrain and squeeze into nests of penguins and other sea birds, devouring eggs and chicks. Recently, the Galopicus National Park Partners partnered with environmental organization Jokotoko to undertake an invasive species eradication program on f Floriana

Island in the southern part of the archipelago. In October twenty twenty three, park managers began exterminating the rats and cats on Floriana, using traps and unmanned ultra light helicopters to disperse pellets of rudenticide and tocsin laced sausages across

the entire island. The program appears to be working. Previously, a small number of penguins remained in the area, Borizma said, but not easily removing the predators and continuing to monitor for their presence will give penguins a fair shot at long term survival. To mitigate the second threat, Borisma and our colleagues are hoping to obtain funding to build artificial

nests and help the birds recolonize Floriana. Borizma first began thinking about constructing nests some years ago when she was puzzled by a penguin pair nesting on top of lava along the western edge of the archipelago on Ferdinand Ferdanina Island without any shade. The birds took turns sitting on the eggs from early evening until morning, but then retreated during the heat of the day, leaving the eggs unprotected. Eventually,

the eggs died. Gorzma realized that there weren't enough shaded nest sites to go around, and that might be limiting how many baby penguins could join the population each year. Fifteen years ago, she began experimenting with artificial nest designs that would blend into the environment so they wouldn't mar the island's natural beauty. The park didn't want doggy igloos or something like that. They like what they use at zoos she said when option was an inconspicuous little penguin

carport made from stacked lava rocks. The other, the one the penguins wound up preferring, was created by digging cavernous holes directly into the hard lava substrate. As in all real estate, location was key. The nests needed to be close to the water, but not so close that they'd fled within the penguins three months period. The idea of building nests, Borzma said, is that if conditions are good, you want everybody that wants to breed to be able

to breed. On the third day of the expedition, Burizma and her team arrived at Punta Espinoza on Ferdini Ferdinina Island, the first place Burzma had ever tried to build the artificial nests. They disembarked from the zodiac and walked carefully across the sharp lava slathered with iguana poop. Two members

located and checked the nest sites. Capello thirty five, who is currently doing postdoctoral research at Cornell University, and Aura Banda Cruz forty two, a third generation resident of the Galopicus and a naturalist working aboard the Silver Sea cruise ship that hosted Gourzma's survey. While ferrying tourists around the glopitus, peering into a small space between a pile of rocks, Capello shouted that she found an artificial nest that appeared

to have been used recently. There were shards of broken eggshells and downy feathers scattered around the area. Maybe it hatched, or maybe it was predated, Capello said, as she slipped the eggshells into a coin envelope for closer inspection later. Regardless, any sign of nessing activity was good news. In her work as a cruise ship naturalist, Bonda Cruz has spent nearly a decade photographing Galobicus penguins. This has led her to develop a non invasive method to identify individuals using

the distinctive patterns of spots on their chests. I realized that the spots were different on each one of them, she said, Each one is unique like a fingerprint. Similarly, researchers have learned to identify jaguars, zebras, dolphins, and even

koalas by their distinguishing patterns. Bonda Cruz is hopeful that going forward in the periods between annual surveys like this one, she could partner with other expedition naturalists who will send more photographs, helping create a visual archive that can be used to discern penguins when they're sighted. The images can also provide records of the birds overall health and the ratio of adults to juveniles. You can tell the adults because they have a white line around their cheek and

their feet are black, bond Acruz said. Juveniles have paler feet and white cheeks. What's more, the photos help document periods in which the penguins are working harder for their food, often correlating with an El Nino. They start spending more time in the water, bond Acruz said, they don't have time to dry completely and they start growing algae. So when you see a green penguin, it's a symbol that

things are not going well for them. For her part, Gorzma is thrilled to still be learning new things about the lives of Galopicus penguins, especially from this next generation of scientists. For a long time, she worried that she wouldn't have anyone to take over her Galopicus research when she retired. You realize when you're jumping and crawling around

on the lava that your days are numbered. You can't do this forever, she said, sitting on the edge of the zodiac while her colleagues check another area for penguins and signs of nesting. That's why I was so happy to find first Caroline and now Aura. I think they can make a dynamic pear and carry it on for another ten twenty thirty years if they want. She went quiet, watching a male penguin standing alone along the shore, basking in the late afternoon's golden light. Ah. The penguin braid,

trying to attract a male a mate. Ah Ah, Boorsmois called back. He's saying, come see my etchings. I've got a good nest. Come take a look, she said, grinning. If the conditions stayed as favorable as they've been in recent weeks, cold water and lots of fish, she felt confident he'll be breeding soon. The next article is from the June twenty twenty five National Geographic. This pig could

Save Your life by Matthew Cher. For decades, scientists and surgeons around the world have been trying to solve the organ donor crisis. Could the answer be rolling in the mud.

The entry require fires should have come with an instruction booklet, sign in at the security hut, choose off at the door, over to the locker room for a hot shower, into a long protective surgical smock and knee high rubber waiters, and finally a pair of safety goggles, which, in the clammy heat of the laboratory complex, quickly began to fog. Sorry for the trouble, smiled my tour guide, Bjorn Petersen, waving me forward. We just have to be exceptionally careful

about pathogen's You'll get used to it, I promise. A couple of hours earlier, i'd woken in a hotel in a Midwestern city I've been asked not to name. Now, with the sun curdling above the surrounding pasture and a gauze of mist in the air, I found myself following Peterson, a German born scientist, through the corridors of a highly secret research facility and across a muddy courtyard cross hatched

with boot prints. When we bought the place, he said the owners were using it as a livestock research facility. Indicated an adjacent barn. The cattle were here and the horses in the field up there. We've kept the same basic layout, though obviously our purpose is very different. He said something else as we entered the barn, but I didn't catch it. His voice had been drowned out by racus chorus of expectant grunts and the clatter of trotter's

on cement. A dozen odd pigs surged forward to the edges of the individual enclosures, clanging their snouts against the metal gates. I want you to meet someone, Peterson said, blinking into the harsh overhead light. He stopped near the pen of an animal whose name card identified her as Margherita. She curled her body against Peterson's hand in the manner of an oversize housecat. Margherita was one of our first, Peterson said, proudly, leaning down to stroke the protuberant black

hairs between the pig's ears. Most of these animals you're looking at were created from the same cells, but there's something special about the first, don't you think. Peterson, who serves as the Sight, had at the farm as a specialist in livestock cloning and zeno transplantation, and exceedingly advanced to scientific technique in which animal matter is transferred into human patients. The name derives from a Greek for strange

or foreign. In twenty twenty three, after nearly a quarter century working at government research institutions in Europe, Peterson uprooted his family and moved to the Midwest to take a job with e Genesis, a biotech firm backed by a group of venture capital firm investors. Then in the early phases of a remarkable plan to develop genetically modified pig

kidneys for transplantation into humans. Powered by advances in gene editing and immunosuppressive medicine, e Genesis had quickly demonstrated that its organs could survive for long periods in the bodies of primate test subjects, filtering blood and producing urine as

ably as an alo transplanted or same species kidney. Now two years later, Peterson and e Genesis stand at the four front of a major revolution in the science of organ transplantation, a revolution that will have implications for the global human donors shortage and the thousands of sick patients who wait every year for a new kidney. Already, the

results have been astonishing. A progression from trial transplants on primates to transplant surgery on brain dead human recipients, and, finally, last March, in a development that made global headlines, to transplant into a living human recipient. Food and Drug Administration officials have since given e Genesis the green light to conduct a three patient clinical trial, a move that added to the surging interest the company had generated since last

year's historic xeno transplant. Provided it stays on track and its trials proved successful, egenesis is CEO Mike Curtis says the company is making plans to grow its production capacity and he thinks the science could become widely available to the public before where the decade is out. In the long term, he added, I'd argue we are looking at a scenario where cross species transplants fully supplant yellow transplants,

where we don't need human donors anymore. Researching that point will require further refinement of the technology and will demand

more pigs like Margarita and scientists like Petersen. But more than anything, it will require trust on the part of those who go under the knife, who put their lives in the hands of this cutting edge science, and the doctors and hospitals championing it, and last year's successful Zeno transplant, a four hour procedure completed at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital that demanded untested faith, a heavy dose of desperation, and an immeasurable amount of luck, was perhaps the most scientific

step forward into this new future. And it all started on a farm in the Midwest, where, on a cold March morning, a van idled in the dawn air, Its door slid open, a one year old pig was trundled inside, and the vehicle rolled down the drive, carrying what amounted to years of medical research, hope, and investment. Snorting in the back. For the next eighteen hours, as the van traveled eastward along I ninety, a million scenarios raced through

Curtis's mind. You're sitting there thinking what if the van gets hit by a car, or what if Rick Slayman changes his mind. The room was silent, all other options had been depleted, and time was slipping away. Sitting at his desk in his office at Massachusetts General Hospital, looking across the room at a man who had become his friend as much as his patient. Nephrologist Winfried Williams asked his long shot question and waited for the response, are

you familiar with the term zeno transplantation? Rick Slayman, who was running out of vasque culture vascular vasculature access for dialysis,

shook his head. Williams wasn't. At this point. In twenty twenty three, zeno transplantation was still a subject relegated to scientific journals and the occasional short news item on skin grafts or corneal transplants, So he did his best to explain that rapid advances in gene editing were offering hope that doctors might soon be able to place a pig kidney inside a human without the risk of acute and

immediate rejection. Williams had been taking a lot, talking a lot with the folks at a biotech company across the Charles River called e Genesis. He'd learned that it had recently been granted approval from the FDA for an expanded access trial, a special allowance to treat patients who have no alternative treatments available to them. Williams did not need to tell Slayman that he qualified a supervisor with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and a cheery man with the

habit of charming nearly everyone he met. Slayman had struggled all his life with hypertension and dibert, frequently twinned conditions that had given way to end stage renal failure, significant destruction to his kidneys, and declining function in both. Slayman had been prescribed a course of dialysis, but as Williams later recalled, the treatment had quickly become intensely time consuming

for his medical team and excruciatingly painful for Slayman. For dialysis to work properly, Williams told me, you need to have reliable vascular access. Traditionally, that axis is secured via an arterio venous fistula, a surgical connection between an artery and a vein and perforated by a pair of needles. One needle removes the patient's blood, the other channels back

a cleaned version. The problem in mister Slaban's case, Williams said, is that he was experiencing significant blood clotting and it made it difficult to get a continuous flow during going during dialysis. In a given year, he was undergoing multiple declotting sessions at a hospital, back and forth, back and forth. It was a hard way for anyone to live, let alone someone as naturally energetic as Slayman, and the long term prognosis was grim. Williams knew effective dialysis does not

reverse damage to the kidneys. It simply makes it possible for a patient to continue living. In the end, a transplant is required, provided an organ can be located. In twenty eighteen, of the roughly ninety five thousand Americans waiting for a new kidney, only twenty five percent managed to obtain one. That December, Slaimant had become one of the lucky twenty five percent. His surgery, performed by a veteran Massachusetts general surgeon, Tatsuo Kawaii, was frictionless. The post surgery

complications apparently minimal. Slaiman was able to go back to work full time, but within three years, familiar symptoms started to reappear. The swelling, the fatigue, tests revealed scarring on the donor kidney, and early evidence of recurrent diabetes. It was there to me, Williams told me that the organ wasn't going to survive for many more years. Once again, Slayman found himself thrust into a punishing cycle of dialysis

and declouding. Later, doctors started him on a course of anti coagulants and installed a new fistula on his upper thigh. Nothing seemed to help. Instead, more worrying signs emerged, like hypercalemia or abnormally high potassium levels, which left slam Un breathless and sent him racing to the local emergency room for treatment. He had to undergo a lot of interventions that required anesthesia and long hospital stays, and I remember him saying, doctor, I'm not sure I can go on

like this. Williams told me he was considering withdrawing completely from dialysis, and we knew that would have been a death sentence, which brought Williams to the idea of Zeno transplantation and his conversations with the Genesis. Williams trusted the scientists at the company. He visited their labs himself and

marveled at what he saw there. Still, he knew his patient would likely have reservations like Slayman Williams as black, and his mind went instantly to the infamous Tuskegee experiments, in which the U. S Government conducted a forty year study of hundreds of black men with syphilis. But intentionally hid their diagnoses and withheld treatment be a penicillin when it became available. You have to understand that what happened at Tuskegee is hard wired in African Americans in the US.

Williams said it has created deep fear about being used as a guinea pig. Over the course of several informed consent meetings, Williams was as clear with Slayman about the hazards of undergoing a cutting edge procedure as he had been about the hazards of doing nothing at all. It would not be easy. He would have to be brave, but Slayman said he understood in conversations with his family.

His daughter p S. Slayman later recalled her father was confident of how much of a success the surgery would be, so I couldn't do anything but support him. The last informed consent session occurred in ear late twenty twenty four, shortly before the transplant surgery was scheduled to take place. Williams told me that halfway through, Slamon burst into tears. He said, I want to do this, but I want you to be there for me, to take care of me,

and I promised I would. It was such a poignant moment because mister Slaman was about to embark on a trip through truly uncharted waters. I could navigate, but he was going to have to be the pioneer. Although it feels cutting edge to day, the science of kidney zeno transplantation stretches back decades and originated in part with the work of a gifted Tulane University doctor and professor named

Keith reamed as Sama. In the early nineteen sixties, Remit Sama, a cardio thoracic surgeon by training, began planning a series of animal to human surgeries involving kidneys taken from laboratory chimpanzees. This concludes readings from National Geographic Magazine for today. Your reader has been RuSHA thank you for listening, Keep on listening, and have a great day.