Mom and Baby Beat 1-in-a-Million Odds to Survive the ‘Rarest of Pregnancies’

This photo provided by the family shows, from left, Kaila, Suze, Ryu and Andrew Lopez at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles in August 2025 – family photo

A Los Angeles woman recently celebrated the first Christmas with her baby boy, Ryu, born to truly remarkable circumstances.

Ryu developed outside his mother’s womb, and remained hidden for months behind an ovarian cyst that grew to be the size of a basketball. It was so unbelievable, the surgical/OBGYN team that delivered Ryu documented it for a case study in a medical journal.

The manner in which Ryu came into being represents a circumstance that’s “far, far less than 1 in a million,” said Dr. John Ozimek, medical director of labor and delivery at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, where Ryu was born. “I mean, this is really insane.”

Now 41, Suze Lopez has always had an irregular cycle, so missed periods—even consecutive ones—are a normal occurrence. It was almost 20 years ago that she was diagnoses with a pair of ovarian cysts, one of which was removed immediately, and one of which was not.

So in early 2025 when Lopez noted her abdomen swelling, her first thought was the cyst. She never felt kicking, and never had morning sickness—and indeed her instinct was at least partly correct.

The pressure and pain in her abdomen grew as days passed, and she was certain that, even if it risked her ability to conceive again, it was time to remove the other cyst which unbeknownst to her had grown to weigh a mind-boggling 22 pounds.

She needed a CT scan to prepare for surgery, which required a pregnancy test for the radiation, and to her utter surprise the test came back positive. Lopez was delighted, but the pain and discomfort grew and soon she had to be hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai where her medical team found a near fully-developed fetus in an amniotic sack lodged against her pelvis.

The term for where the fetus develops is “implants” and the term for a fetus that implants outside of the womb is an “ectopic pregnancy.” Almost all of these go on to rupture and hemorrhage. As such, fetal mortality can be as high as 90% in such cases and birth defects are seen in about 1 in 5 surviving babies, SF Gate reports.

However, because fetal Ryu implanted against the pelvic wall and not against the liver, it was far more manageable, and the reason why Lopez didn’t have more pain earlier.

Lopez and her boy beat the odds, despite a mammoth surgical procedure that both delivered Ryu at 8 pounds and removed the ovarian cyst—together weighing as much as an adult bobcat. During the procedure, Lopez lost half her blood, and had to be continually given transfusions.

“The whole time, I might have seemed calm on the outside, but I was doing nothing but praying on the inside,” Andrew Lopez, Suze’s husband, told SF Gate. “It was just something that scared me half to death, knowing that at any point I could lose my wife or my child.”Instead, they both survived without any maleffects. Ryu “completes” their family, said his mother, and recently celebrated his first Christmas alongside his older sister Kaila. Mom and Baby Beat 1-in-a-Million Odds to Survive the ‘Rarest of Pregnancies

Read More........→July 28, 2026

Application lodged to build microreactor at US university

A rendering of the KRONOS plant at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Image: NANO Nuclear)

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it has received an application from the University of Illinois to construct the first research KRONOS micro modular reactor on the university's campus.

The Construction Permit Application (CPA) was submitted on 31 March by The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, NANO Nuclear Energy Inc's partner for the KRONOS MMR deployment at the University of Illinois (U of I).

"With this submission, NANO Nuclear becomes the first commercially-ready microreactor developer and the third commercially-ready Generation IV advanced reactor developer to submit a CPA, placing NANO Nuclear among a small group of advanced nuclear companies progressing toward commercial deployment," the company said.

It added: "The preparation of a CPA represents the culmination of years of engineering development, thousands of pages of technical documentation, coordinated input across reactor design, safety analysis, environmental review, and regulatory compliance disciplines, and establishment of a viable supply chain. In NANO Nuclear's partnership with the U of I, the CPA submission builds on an extensive body of work developed through continuous engagement with the NRC, including completion of the readiness assessment, a voluntary but highly rigorous process aimed at ensuring a complete and high-quality application. Importantly, this iterative process reflects a high level of alignment with regulatory expectations and provides strong confidence in the application's readiness for acceptance for docketing and formal NRC review."

"The NRC is reviewing the application to determine whether it is complete," the regulator said. "If accepted, the agency will begin a detailed technical evaluation of the reactor's safety and security and publish a notice of opportunity to request an adjudicatory hearing on the application before the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board."

It noted that if the construction permit is granted, the university would need to submit a separate operating licence application and receive NRC approval before the reactor could begin operation.

NANO Nuclear acquired the Micro Modular Reactor Energy System technology through its USD85 million acquisition of Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation's nuclear technology, which was completed in January last year. At that time, NANO Nuclear renamed the technology as the KRONOS MMR. The MMR is a 45 MW thermal, 15 MW electrical high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, using TRISO fuel in prismatic graphite blocks and has a sealed transportable core.

NANO Nuclear signed a strategic collaboration agreement with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in April 2025 to construct the first research KRONOS micro modular reactor on the university's campus. The agreement formally established the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as a partner in the licensing, siting, public engagement, and research operation of the KRONOS MMR, while also identifying the university campus as the permanent site for the reactor as a research and demonstration installation.

The university plans to re-power partially its coal-fired Abbott power station with the KRONOS MMR, providing a zero-carbon demonstration of district heat and power to campus buildings as part of its green campus initiative. The project team aims to demonstrate how microreactor systems integrate with existing fossil fuel infrastructure to accelerate the decarbonisation of existing power-generation facilities."Through every step of the process thus far, we at The Grainger College of Engineering have worked diligently alongside our partners at NANO Nuclear Energy to ensure our goals in constructing the first KRONOS MMR on the university's campus can become a reality," said Caleb Brooks, Professor and Donald Biggar Willett Faculty Scholar of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering. "By submitting the Construction Permit Application to the NRC, we are taking the next step in signifying that the work will be done correctly and precisely. And we continue to look forward to the possibilities of what can become the most advanced nuclear research platform on any US campus." Application lodged to build microreactor at US university

Read More........→July 03, 2026