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French Team Implants First Long-Term Artificial Heart
TrueSatan writes "Physicians at the Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris have inserted a heart made by the French Carmat company. The heart features bovine tissue components used to reduce the clot forming tendencies of fully artificial units and is intended to allow greater freedom of movement to the patient than previous, short-term use, units permitted. It is powered by external, wearable, lithium-ion batteries and is approximately three times heavier than a typical (European) human heart, though the manufacturer intends to reduce the weight and size of the unit so as to allow use by smaller recipients — in particular most women and men from areas of the world where average body size is less than white/Caucasian averages."
France is not socialist, except from the point of view of the inbreed rednecks that fill the ranks of the Tea Party. Also, french "socialism" allowed France to have bullet trains as soon as 1979, gave birth to the only slightly successfull supersonic civil plane, created the first massive electronic network (sure, the web is better than the "minitel", but it was there in the early 80'). And French people enjoy much longer lives and a far better health than Americans.
As for the innovative aspect of true socialism, ask the russians : sputnik and Gagarin, ekranoplanes, phage therapy and many more things. Socialism loves innovation, it loves it much more than patent-ridden, monopolitistic capitalism. Its problem is that socialism is very bad at SELLING its innovations, while capitalism is able to sell a non-innovation as if it is one. And can sells other's innovations as well.