IEEE Spectrum reports on a successful text by the University of Maryland Medical center involving drone transportation of organs. "When a patient who needs an organ transplantation is finally matched with a donor, every second matters. A longer wait between when an organ is removed from a donor and when it is placed into a recipient is associated with poorer organ function following transplantation. To maximize the chances of success, organs must be shipped from A to B as quickly and as safely as possible—and a recent test run suggests that drones are up to the task. One transplant surgeon’s personal experience at the operating table, waiting for organs to arrive, prompted him to think of new forms of delivery. 'I frequently encounter situations where there’s simply no way to get an organ to me fast enough to do a transplant, and then those life-saving organs do not get transplanted into my patient,' says Dr. Joseph Scalea of the University of Maryland Medical Center. 'And that’s frustrating, so I wanted to develop a better system for doing that.'"

A recent article in Popular Mechanics touts the benefits of drone technology in firefighting.  "The Menlo Park drone program got started in April 2014, after Calvert saw a drone at another firefighter’s bachelor party and realized it would be an important tool for emergency workers. Drones outfitted with cameras help firefighters get a better idea of the scope and damage to the surrounding area or perform search-and-rescue operations. Today, MPFD personnel are in demand as experts on integrating technology into fire response. And despite (or maybe because of) his youth, McCandless is a crucial part of the program, which includes a fleet of fourteen DJI drones of various sizes and capabilities. He has an intuitive ability for getting the drones to cooperate and interconnect with other firefighting tech, and he also fabricates custom accessories for the MPFD drones from his home workshop, in a role Calvert says is 'basically research and development.' He’s added mounts for devices like gas meters and Geiger counters. He’s currently testing a mechanism that could throw life preservers or lifelines during water rescues."

Commercial UAV News recently penned an article touting the benefits of drones in researching climate change. "Efforts to understand why plants emit certain compounds have been hindered because scientists like Dr. Martin haven’t been able to spatially map out which plants are emitting these compounds at which times and for which reasons. That’s the 1km-type resolution in the horizontal that has been missing and which drones are able to provide. A couple of the key insights from his presentation centered on how drones are resetting the expectations that scientists like him have going into such projects. A single drone and fleet can tackle some science questions that traditional platforms cannot even get out of the gate for, and it’s made a difference in terms of the approach and findings for such projects. Additionally, Dr. Martin talked through the challenges associated with the political and social environment surrounding the Rainforest, which simply underscores the fact that there will always be challenges when it comes to operating a drone, regardless of the environment."