内容摘要：Seven U.S. cardinals, due to being 80 or older, are not conclave electors: Edwin O’Brien, Roger Mahony, Adam Maida, Seán Patrick O’Malley, Justin Rigali, James Francis Stafford, Donald Wuerl.

Seven U.S. cardinals, due to being 80 or older, are not conclave electors: Edwin O’Brien, Roger Mahony, Adam Maida, Seán Patrick O’Malley, Justin Rigali, James Francis Stafford, Donald Wuerl.

The biosecurity gets even tighter just a few miles away in Christiansburg, Virginia, where a new herd is being raised – pigs expected to supply organs for formal studies of animal-to-human transplantation as soon as next year.This massive first-of-its-kind building bears no resemblance to a farm. It’s more like a pharmaceutical plant. And part of it is closed to all but certain carefully chosen employees who take a timed shower, don company-provided clothes and shoes, and then enter an enclave where piglets are growing up.

Behind that protective barrier are some of the world’s cleanest pigs. They breathe air and drink water that’s better filtered against contaminants than what’s required for people. Even their feed gets disinfected – all to prevent them from picking up any possible infections that might ultimately harm a transplant recipient.“We designed this facility to protect the pigs against contamination from the environment and from people,” said Matthew VonEsch of United Therapeutics, Revivicor’s parent company. “Every person that enters this building is a possible pathogen risk.”The Associated Press got a peek at what it takes to clone and raise designer pigs for their organs – including a $75 million “designated pathogen-free facility” built to meet Food and Drug Administration safety standards for xenotransplantation.

Thousands of Americans each yearfor a transplant, and many experts acknowledge there never will be enough human donors to meet the need.

Animals offer the tantalizing promise of a ready-made supply. After decades of failed attempts, companies including Revivicor,

and Makana Therapeutics are engineering pigs to be more humanlike.The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

. Pieces of plastic in BanquetIn recent weeks, U.S. consumers have seen high-profile food recalls for an unappetizing reason: They’re contaminated with foreign objects that have no place on a dinner plate. And while no one wants to bite down on

in smoked sausage, this type of contamination is one of the top reasons for food recalls in the U.S.Food safety experts and federal agencies use the terms “extraneous” or “foreign” materials to describe things like metal fragments, rubber gaskets and bits of bugs that somehow make it into packaged goods.