Pacemakers help regulate the heart's rhythm when it's not beating properly, whether too fast, too slow, or irregularly. They are electronic devices that are sent running to keep the heart beating, and about 40,000 are installed in the state each year. There are several types, some of which don't even require wires or surgery to implant, and their size has been decreasing over the years. Now, researchers at Northwestern University in Evanston, United States, have developed a pioneering prototype in a study that is smaller than a grain of rice. It is a temporary device that, after its useful life, is absorbed by the patient's body, achieves effective stimulation in animals and human tissue, and could be implanted less invasively than current pacemakers, according to a study published in the journal Nature This Wednesday.

"An absolute clinical success." An Australian man with heart failure has become the first person in the world to leave the hospital after receiving a fully artificial heart implant. Specifically, the 40-year-old patient received the device on November 22, 2024, at St. Vincent's Hospital in Sydney. Months later, in February of this year, he was discharged from the hospital while awaiting a heart donor for the definitive transplant, which finally arrived this March.