Scientists have successfully differentiated human embryonic stem cells (hESC) into major cell types of lung epithelial tissue, a technique which could provide an alternative to lung transplants for patients with lung injury due to chronic pulmonary disease and inherited genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis.

I am presently into the second week of my lessons of Subnuclear Physics for the 2nd year of specialization in Physics, and I have just finished a lesson discussing the current searches for the Higgs boson at the Tevatron collider. Since the course has a focus on experimental techniques, I found it useful today to give as an exercise the determination of an order-of-magnitude estimate of cross section limits that the CDF experiments can set on a 160 GeV Higgs boson, with the data so far analyzed. It is an exercise I worked out by heart during my walk to the Physics Department: this should tell you it is not of overpowering difficulty.