The largest collaborative undertaking yet to explore the relic light emitted by the infant universe has taken a step forward with the US Department of Energy’s selection of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to lead the partnership of national labs, universities and other institutions that will carry out the DOE roles and responsibilities for the effort. This next-generation experiment, known as CMB-S4, or Cosmic Microwave Background Stage 4, will be a joint DOE and National Science Foundation project.

For the past seven months, the US has been fighting alongside the rest of the world to reign in COVID-19. From cutting-edge research and technical developments to recovery routines and last-line-of-defense treatments, cryogenics has played a number of roles—some expected and some surprising—to aid in the international response to the pandemic. Organizations and individuals are utilizing many applications that rely on cryogenics as the underlying technology.

On August 6, 2020, the world’s first successfully cloned Przewalski’s horse was born in Texas at the veterinary facility of a ViaGen Equine collaborator, Timber Creek Veterinary. The foal, born to a domestic surrogate mother, is a clone of a male Przewalski’s horse whose DNA was cryopreserved 40 years ago at the San Diego Zoo Global (SDZG) Frozen Zoo®. The colt’s birth revives genetic diversity that had been lost to the world and has now been recovered due to this important partnership between Revive & Restore, ViaGen Equine and SDZG.