It probably wouldn't have happened if [her mother Joan] Smith hadn't gone global with an appeal for Chantal's life. Tuesday's new beginning is the result of an innovative organ swap pioneered at one of the nation's premier hospitals.

Adamson received a kidney that was made possible because Tammy Williams 39, of McMillan, Mich., donated hers -- to an anonymous recipient. The recipient had a partner-donor at Johns Hopkins Medical Center who matched Chantal....

Tammy Williams said she would likely have gone through life without meeting Chantal or her mother--much less become a part of their family--if she hadn't typed up a press release about a Web site matching donors and people needing organs for her part-time newspaper job. It instantly piqued her curiosity.

"I've always given blood," said the cell phone saleswoman, mother of three and stepmother of six. "And this seems like the most logical step."...

"She was a mother pleading for her daughter's life," Tammy said, before Tuesday's surgery. "I couldn't imagine not helping them in that situation."

Subsequent tests showed that while Tammy wasn't a match with Chantal, she was a match with an anonymous patient on a donor-recipient list.

Brigitte Reeb, administrative director of the Johns Hopkins Medical Center, said if a program like this was set up nationally, 14,000 donors could come off the national waiting list. She said Web sites that set up Chantal and Tammy are making organ donation easier.

"Most people don't know they can do this until they find that Web site," she said.

Such four-way swaps are becoming more common. Here's a story about two men donating kidneys to each other's wives.

And, slowly but surely, public pressure is overcoming some hospitals' prejudice against finding donors on the Internet. Henry L. Davis of the Buffalo News reports on what hospital officials believe is the first transplant in New York State arranged over the Internet. When Jeanette Ostrom used MatchingDonors.com to find donor William Thomas (right) for her son Paul Cardinale (left), Buffalo General Hospital at first refused to do the transplant. But Ostrom and others persuaded the hospital to change its policy. Davis reports:

Only about 28,100 organ transplants are performed each year in the United States. More than 6,700 Americans die annually while waiting for an organ.

Faced with these facts and tremendous lobbying by patients, hospitals are slowly changing their policies. Buffalo General and Erie County Medical Center, the only facilities in the region that perform transplants, late last year said they would perform transplants for patients who find live donors via the Internet or other media.

Ostrom, another founder of wnykidneyconnection [a site for people in Western New York seeking donors], played a key role in persuading Kaleida Health to revise its policy.

"We came to have a tremendous appreciation for the number of people with end-stage renal disease and those waiting for a kidney," said Dr. Margaret Paroski, chief medical officer of Kaleida Health and chairwoman of the Upstate Transplant Services board of directors.

And to follow up on an earlier posting, both New Jersey pastor-donor Rick Oppelt and congregant-recipient Carol Trapp are doing well, according to this news story, despite a nurses' strike at the hospital where the transplant took place.

UPDATE: According to this followup story, Chantal Adamson is doing well.

Just read the WaPost article you linked to. Interesting. And the idea of designing procedures around human behavior makes a lot of sense.

As a former schoolteacher, I couldn't help but notice that Mr. Vedantam failed to mention how classrooms behave differently than groups of adults in an office building. For one thing, schools practice evacuations far more frequently than office buildings. Then there is the difference in the group dynamics. An office full of adults will behave differently than a room full of children and one adult whose authority they've been conditioned to respect.

As a teacher, I was never fond of fire drills, but I really disliked having to leave our building for false alarms. We teachers might like to confer with each other before we leave with our classes, but we have our responses drilled into us and our students. Our students look to us to determine how to react, and none of us teachers wants to be the last one to take our class out. But outside, we tell our nicely lined up students to stay quiet and then we gather in small groups to confer and try to make sense of the situation, just the way that office workers do before they leave the building.

The key is to make evacuation, rather than staying in, the default, so that people worry less about feeling stupid for leaving and more about being the last ones out. Drills also establish a routine that overcomes the instinct to confer. I was going to add that military discipline is all about replacing such human instincts with behavior that makes for survival in unusual circumstances. But then reader Dale Borgeson made that point better.

Granted that the civilain world is different than the military but the human tendencies are the same. What's different is the training. I was on a aircraft carrier. When General Quarters sounds (AKA Battle Stations) 5000 people have three minutes to get to where they are supposed to go. The ladders (stairs) are one person wide and quite steep. There are rules on how you move during GQ, up and forward on the starboard side and down and aft on the port. Every once in a while someone forgets what he's supposed to do and stands in a passage or at the top of a ladder trying to decide. Invariably, he gets run over and ends up on the deck. It's quite amazing how well this all works most of the time.

Everyone is trained on this sort of thing fairly intensely, both in boot camp (or OCS) and continually with drills when at sea. When the alarm sounds, not just GQ but any of the many other types of alarm, everyone moves immediately. No pauses for discussion as in your article. Everyone is trained, at least a bit, in fire fighting, how to use a hose (both as a lead and as a follower), how to use emergency breathing equipment, how to attack a fire in various situations, etc.

I remember when I went to fire fighting school in boot camp. On the first simulated GQ we had with a real fuel fire, everyone reacted as you described. When the alarm sounded ten of us assigned to the hose team ran over to the hose and just stood there. About three seconds later the instructors trained two five-inch hoses on the group. A five-inch hose at full pressure puts out a LOT of water and we were immediately on our faces in the mud (this was outdoors). The instructors were screaming at us that we were all dead and why weren't we doing what we were supposed to do. They then ran over and picked us by the back of our shirts, all the time screaming at us, "You go to the hose valve, you grab the nozzle, you pull the hose off the rack", etc. By the end of the day we were were working well together.

Perhaps becuse of this training 35 years ago, whenever I go into any public place I always look for the exits and escape paths. I wouldn't be surprised if the person that the article said just immediately left the WTC was a Navy vet.

Unfortunately, as the old Boy Who Cried Wolf story teaches, too many false alarms also constitute a kind of training. I once lived in an apartment building where the fire alarms went off constantly, always without any real fire. So after a while, no one ever left. Then one night there was a (fortunately small) fire--and the alarm didn't go off. They had to bang on our doors to get us out.

Experts who study disasters are slowly coming to realize that rather than try to change human behavior to adapt to building codes and workplace rules, it may be necessary to adapt technology and rules to human behavior: In the narrow window between the siren of disaster and disaster itself, people always want to understand what is happening.

You can see this yourself the next time the fire alarm goes off at work, school or home. People will look at one another. They will ask each other: "Is it a drill? Shall we give it 30 seconds to see if it shuts off on its own? Can I just finish sending this e-mail?"

For all the disaster preparations put in place since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the behavior of people confronted with ambiguous new information remains one of the most serious challenges for disaster planners.

"Every man for himself" is not how people respond either. As a result, they tend to survive together or die together.

Taken in late October, when the ruins were still smoking.

When Superman debuted in 1978, it invented a whole new movie genre--and a new kind of cinematic magic. Today, hundreds of millions of dollars depend on the heroic box-office performances of costumed crusaders whom Hollywood once thought worthy only of kiddie serials or campy parodies. The two Spider-Man movies rank among the top ten of all time for gross domestic receipts, and X-Men: The Last Stand and Superman Returns are among this year’s biggest hits.

Superhero comics have been around since Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer ruled the back lot, but only recently has Hollywood realized the natural connection between superhero comics and movies. It's not just that both are simultaneously visual and verbal media; that formal connection would apply equally to the "serious" graphic novels and sequential art that want nothing to do with crime fighters in form- fitting outfits. Cinema isn't just a good medium for translating graphic novels. It's specifically a good medium for superheroes. On a fundamental, emotional level, superheroes, whether in print or on film, serve the same function for their audience as Golden Age movie stars did for theirs: they create glamour.

Nonsubscribers can read the article here for the next few days. Here's the permanent link, for those with an Atlantic subscription.

There's an interesting intellectual property story behind the column's art. The art director originally wanted to reproduce Savador Larroca's Storm image from the comic book pictured above. But Marvel dragged out the permission process until the day before the issue was supposed to go to the printer. As a condition of permission, the company's lawyer then insisted that the article treat the word superhero as a Marvel/DC trademark, spelling it Super Hero. Fortunately for me, The Atlantic declined and went with Superman.

As is so often the case, aggressive IP lawyers trumped smart business strategy--good fodder for a future Forbes column. Marvel is supposed to be promoting second-line characters, including Storm, and The Atlantic is clearly not trying to publish a superhero comic in competition with the trademark holders. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone with insight on the controversy surrounding this particular trademark. Meanwhile, I'm investigating how the Sci-Fi show Who Wants to Be a Superhero? managed to use both Marvel images and the normal spelling of superhero.

Trapp's 60-year-old brother offered to donate one of his kidneys, but he wasn't a blood-type match. As she updated a friend about her condition after Sunday services at the Oak Tree Road [sic] Presbyterian Church last summer, the Rev. Rick Oppelt, the church pastor, overheard her say she was an O-postive blood type.

"He said, "I'm O-positive. You can have one of my kidneys, Carol.' I thought he was joking," Trapp said.

So she shrugged off the offer. But the prospect of grueling hours of dialysis kept her up at night.

Trapp called Oppelt and asked him if he was serious about donating a kidney.

"He said he was, but when I asked him if he had told his family, he said he told them "in passing,' " Trapp said. "I said you better think about this and you have to talk to your wife.' "

Oppelt's wife, Jo, called Trapp, telling her she thought her husband's offer admirable. Tomorrow, Oppelt will undergo surgery to give Trapp his left kidney....

Oppelt said he only announced his decision to donate his kidney recently.

"The whole congregation let out a collective gasp," he said.

In the near future, I hope such decisions will not produce gasps. Kidney donation is not only a life-saving act but, compared to many other risky things people do, a reasonably safe one. Donors with O-positive blood like Oppelt's are especially needed.

Unfortunately, as is all too common on the kidney-donation beat, there were many stories about Oppelt's donation before the surgery but so far I haven't seen any followup reports. UPDATE: According to this news story, both Oppelt and Trapp are doing well--despite a nurses' strike at the hospital where the transplant took place.

The Rocky Mountain News argues for incentives for organ donors.

The medical establishment has long considered it anathema to allow donors or their survivors to "profit" from their beneficence. The worry is that poor people will sell their organs out of financial desperation and thus in some cases compromise their health. But there are ways to minimize the risk that such a fully open market might pose.

For example, Washington could alleviate the shortage by considering pilot programs. One idea is federal income tax relief along the lines of laws operating in eight states, including Utah. Those states offer up to $10,000 in income-tax deductions to repay donors' travel expenses and lost wages.

Another possibility: "futures" contracts, in which recipients would pay up front some of the funeral expenses of those who elect to donate organs at death.

And the medical establishment should drop its objections to organizations like MatchingDonors.com. This site lets organ recipients find willing live donors and make transplantation arrangements privately.

We're certainly not comfortable endorsing a full-fledged market in organs, a regime that would allow donors to auction kidneys on eBay. But the current system is not compassionate; it amounts to a death sentence for thousands of Americans each year.

Ethicists and medical professionals need to acknowledge that fact and consider life-affirming alternatives.

On a lighter note, my three-kidneyed friend Sally Satel passes on this link to a transcript of a very funny fourth season South Park episode featuring less-than-voluntary kidney donation and a spoof of quack medicine.

She enters the price for each item into her computer. In the case of the bologna, Gaffney is perplexed. She took down the price as $2.49. But her computer tells her that on her last visit the price was $1.99. After some investigating, Gaffney realizes she grabbed the wrong item this time -- the higher-priced all-beef light bologna.

The price of Boston lettuce had increased from $1.69 on Gaffney's last visit. She hunts down one of the store's produce workers to find out why, but he does not have any insights.

Stores let Gaffney and others collect price information on a confidential basis.

What are some of the more challenging tasks for the price hunters? They include the price for a pair of eyeglasses, for leasing or repairing a car, or for anything related to health -- because of all the details involved. Clothing can be complicated, too.

"If it is a seasonal item, most likely it is going to be gone the next time you go there. You got to look all over for it and make sure you got it," Gaffney says.

If the store is out of the item, Gaffney has the tedious and often time-consuming task of finding a substitute product that is as close to the original as possible.

For instance, Gaffney might be forced to find a substitute for a woman's blouse with the following specifications: sleeveless, 85 percent cotton, 15 percent rayon. Made in Malaysia for a national brand. Does it have any special features, such as appliques, embroidery or beadwork? What's the hip length?

Determining the inflation rate requires a lot more subjective judgments than the precise numbers you see in the paper might suggest. I discussed some of the complexities, especially regarding quality improvements, in this NYT column and, more recently, in this Forbes column.

But I've always felt more job security as a freelance writer than I did as a newspaper staffer. And even [Barbara] Ehrenreich admitted at the PBS press conference that as a freelance writer, she's probably better off now than most of the traditional media types in the audience.

I know how she felt. If I were to lose one of my regular gigs, for instance, I'd be unhappy; but unlike the laid-off staffer, my income wouldn't suddenly plummet to zero. In a world of constant corporate downsizing, anyone who doesn't realize this is sadly out of date.

Several years ago, as it happens, a veteran editor doing some consulting work at a local mid-sized newspaper offered me a staff job. Knowing the paper's legendary cheapness, I explained that I doubted they'd be able to come up with as much money I made freelancing - and it would have to be a LOT more for me to even bother thinking about it.

"Why would it have to be MORE," he asked, sounding genuinely shocked. "What about the SECURITY?"

Now I was shocked. This guy had been in the business half-a-century, witnessing God knows how many tanking media enterprises and in-with-the-new, out-with-the-old staff reorganizations, and he still could use the words "security" and "newspapers" in the same sentence without laughing?

I guess so. But as I explained, he'd have to count me out of that particular deadpan club.

The job market is tough on people who've relied on their employer's brands for security. Tom Peters gets mocked a lot for his rhetorical excesses, but he got this one very right: "We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You." If you're indistinguishable from every other potential employee, why should I hire you? And if I do hire you, why should I pay more than the bare minimum? On the flip side, if you've got a desirable brand, why should you stay in a lousy job situation, especially when the bosses are encouraging "voluntary" departures?

So how can Chrysler screw it up? At last report, the company is trying to decide whether to add a V-6 in the next re-do. The current PT is a four-cylinder. Adding a V-6 would make it bigger and heavier, more expensive and thirstier for gasoline. That does not seem like the right thing to do today.

Such a move would be bad enough, but here's worse news (and I am quoting Automotive News, which usually gets its facts straight): "Another issue is styling. Retro and cutesy are out of fashion. Expect the next-generation PT Cruiser to be more of a straight-up Toyota RAV4 fighter with the retro elements played down."

The word is that Chrysler may even be thinking about changing the name on the new model, which is due in three or four years.

If all this is true, we are talking about wrecking the most original and successful vehicle seen in Detroit in years. It is no secret that designers hate retro. They think that borrowing from the past is an insult to their sensitive talents. Cute is also a problem, because when companies get successful, they believe they are too serious and too important to have cars that look "cute."...

What distinguishes the PT from all the other small wagons--Mazda Motor's Mazda5, Honda's CRV, GM's Pontiac Vibe, Toyota Motor's Matrix or the Ford Focus--is that look. Take it away, and the PT Cruiser is just another small wagon. The truth is, Toyota and Honda still build them better than Chrysler. Eliminate the great look, and the PT--or whatever Chrysler will call it--becomes a second-rater.

He ends with a good tale of how the funny-looking car got designed in the first place.

"It was anathema to me that this university is funded by taxpayers who are being denied acceptance while out-of-state [students] are allowed to come in," says state representative Jim McGee of Florence. He said he introduced the bill after getting calls from South Carolina alumni whose kids had been rejected. "They're not allowed to go, even if they had a very solid academic portfolio."

This debate isn't that different from the one about racial quotas at state universities: Shouldn't student bodies represent (proportionately, in the case of racial categories) the people who pay the bills? Is a state-funded education a transfer entitlement--between taxpayers and state residents of college age--or is it a public good--a way of raising the human capital of the state and spurring economic growth to benefit everyone? Over the long run, is it politically feasible to fund necessarily elitist institutions of academic and research excellence through taxes?

If a state university system is supposed to be a public good, it should, at least at its flagship, try harder to attract and retain high achievers than to placate every mediocre high school grad. The most promising students don't want, or need, a repeat of high school, and neither do their professors. While I'm skeptical of claims to giant spillovers from state-funded institutions, my natural sympathies lie with the folks trying against all odds to raise the quality of "the other" USC (a task that was much more easily accomplished at the real, private USC, partly because it has fierce academic competition from state-funded rivals).

"We're trying to import intellectual capital," says Dennis Pruitt, vice president for student affairs at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. The state faces flat growth in high school graduates over the next decade.

With appropriations steadily decreasing in recent years and making up about 23% of the university's operating budget, he also takes a swipe at lawmakers: "If our state legislators and others would like us to serve the citizens of South Carolina, then fund us adequately."

In fact, the citizens of South Carolina, in my admittedly jaded experience, get exactly the intellectual capital they want--which is to say, a continuing outflow. Maybe South Carolina policy makers should try to get North Carolina and Georgia to stop taking out-of-state students at state universities.

On the public good/industrial question, Austan Goolsbee's most recent NYT Economic Scene column (free PDF) suggests reasons for pessimism.

It's pretty clear what the next hotel perks will be. Bahney's sidebar reports some early indicators.