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The ability to regrow body parts is dormant in mammals, not lost
- nryoo 4mo ago[dead]
- anticensor 4mo agoThe trick is to make regeneration fast enough to heal the wound without making fast enough to cause cancer. Maybe even supported by provisional fibrosis.
- ranger_danger 4mo agoWasn't this proven many years ago by a random guy who used a "extra-cellular matrix" of stem cells to regrow his severed finger, nail and all? Found it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7354458.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7354458.stm
- lazyasciiart 4mo agoNo, the end of your finger just can grow back. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/06/10/190385484/chopped-how-amputated-fingertips-sometimes-grow-back https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/06/10/1903854... Dude's brother had him throw his product on the finger as it did so, definitely an astute marketing trick. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/may/01/finger.claim https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/may/01/finger.claim
- ranger_danger 4mo ago"I don't know how it works, so it must be fake news." To be fair, the person being skeptical is just a surgeon, this is not a peer-reviewed study or anything actually scientific. Your NPR link even shows that scientists realize there are still unknowns: > "We think that nail stem cells may a have a special function to induce the whole regeneration process, including nerve attraction and growth of the bone," Ito say. A cursory search seems to say that typical regrowth of a nail takes 4-6 months, but Spievak claimed his only took 4 weeks. Can we say definitively that his "pixie dust" had nothing to do with it? I don't think so. Can we say it did have something to do with it? Also unknown... but the answer right now IMO certainly isn't a scientific "no."
- lazyasciiart 4mo agoIf it worked on humans 13 years ago, then by now it would have worked on a human who was not sibling to the inventor, in a way not essentially identical to life without it.
- RajT88 4mo agoI recall reading a similar story with powdered lizard. Also just a fingertip.
- stevenwoo 4mo agoI’m surprised this does not mention humans can grow back the tips of their fingers (past the white part of cuticle) https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/06/10/190385484/chopped-how-amputated-fingertips-sometimes-grow-back https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/06/10/1903854... Supposed to be only kids but I’ve chopped off a few mm by accident it came back as an adult or I can’t tell the difference.
- KellyCriterion 4mo ago2 years I ago I sliced maybe 1.5mm frommy thumb-tip; when taking off the bandage, I could clearly see the "straight cut" and that some material was missing. Until today, it recovered completely
- oniony 4mo agoWhat, last night?
- KellyCriterion 4mo agohaha :D Sorry,English is not my native language! What I meant was: "During the last years until today" Is this sentence better?
- mootothemax 4mo agoIn your first comment, replace “until today” with “since then” and you’re good! “Until today” is one of those English phrases that is particularly unfair on non-native speakers. You know “until” and you know “today” and so it’s completely natural to combine them in the way you did. But as ever, English is dumb and annoying and hard work, all at the same time.
- delfinom 4mo agoLol, I once sharpened my knives and went to cook. During the prep I said, "wow I wonder how sharp the knife is", next thing you know, i cut about 1/4" of my finger tip off, right through the finger nail with zero resistance. Besides the blood getting everywhere and needing superglue to stop it, it grew back completely fine.
- csr86 4mo agoRetina is a good example of this. Zebrafish can regrow damaged retina, but while mammals have the same stem cells (Muller glia), they dont repair the retina, but form scar tissue. There is a lot of research and I think they have managed to modify rat genome, so that their retina has showns some repair abilities. The problem is that it often causes tumors. I have other retina permanently damaged, and suffer from double vision when looking small objects like text.
- cortesoft 4mo agoAh, I was wondering the evolutionary reason why those genes would have gone dormant. Cancer is a sensible answer.
- warumdarum 4mo agoDinosaur Predation damage? If you life fast, get eaten young, repairs are a waste.
- IAmBroom 3mo agoCounterpoint: long-lived mammals. Elephants and whales are both famously long-lived, and oddly low-cancer.
- Sharlin 4mo agoYep, the unfortunate flipside of "let's use stem cells to rebuild stuff" is always "let's use stem cells to give us cancer". Technology might help alleviate the cancer part compared to blind evolution, hopefully.
- api 4mo agoSome aging mechanisms like telomeres are also mechanisms to prevent cancer by limiting cell division. It looks like one of the optimization edges walked by evolution is a conflict between longevity and the ability to repair and regenerate versus not getting cancer. It’s easy to make human cell lines immortal, but that will kill you. One route I can imagine to radical life extension is to start by editing the genome to introduce much more robust but different anti cancer adaptations. Then start turning regenerative stuff and things like telomerase back on.
- buddhistdude 4mo agoMaybe that's what Jesus used on the people that he healed
- cheema33 4mo ago> Maybe that's what Jesus used on the people that he healed I think this is what all healers used. They were all way ahead of their time and clearly misunderstood.
- krapp 4mo agoJesus, if he existed, didn't actually heal anyone or perform any miracles. That's mythology, not reality.
- buddhistdude 4mo agoHow do you know?
- krapp 4mo agoBecause I'm a grownup who knows the difference between reality and make-believe.
- buddhistdude 4mo agoI take from this that you don't, otherwise you would explain it
- krapp 4mo agoYou're the one who believes magic is real, it's up to you to explain it. Extraordinary claims and such.
- halfcat 4mo agoThis is ironic. They didn’t say they believe. You offered your belief that you know something that happened long ago (extraordinary claim), and they are naturally curious how you could know that. If you’re a time traveler or whatever we’d be quite interested to hear more.
- david-gpu 4mo agoNot a single mention of the work on limb regeneration by Professor Michael Levin's lab at Tufts? https://as.tufts.edu/biology/tufts-center-regenerative-and-developmental-biology/people https://as.tufts.edu/biology/tufts-center-regenerative-and-d...
- NotGMan 4mo agoIn a study they figured out that organs seem to have an electrical potential range as a signature/command for stem cells for which organ to build and where. In a frog they were able to grow legit eyes in the gut just by artificialy inducing a certain voltage in that area. No need for any cell transplantations: the voltage really seems to be the only signal needed. This might also be how it might be done in the future in humans: block scar tissue then induce voltage with the signature of the organ you wish to regrow. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22159581/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22159581/
- gste 4mo agoIt's just hidden by a feature flag. (Probably for a good reason)
- 12_throw_away 4mo agotbh I think it's probably just commented out (and is about as likely to still work as any other commented-out code)
- anticensor 4mo agoMethyllated out....
- yehosef 4mo agoEvolution is so smart.
- IAmBroom 3mo agoMonte Carlo smart, not optimized compiler smart. Like the way slime molds solve mazes: explore every possible path in parallel, and push growth in all areas with greater nutrient gradients. Not by sensing any gestalt clues, like symmetries in the maze design. Astoundingly stupidly smart.
- kittikitti 4mo agoI'm hoping that this can be applied to routine genital mutilation in humans that are often done near birth and without consent.
- fsiefken 4mo agoPerhaps humans can one day regrow their teeth for better food ingestion when elderly and cognitive function.