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The ability to regrow body parts is dormant in mammals, not lost

48 points

by nryoo

1 hour ago

| past

| 6 comments

| sciencedaily.com

| HN

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david-gpu

46 seconds ago

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Not a single mention of the work on limb regeneration by the Michael Levin's lab at Tufts?

https://as.tufts.edu/biology/tufts-center-regenerative-and-d...

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csr86

10 minutes ago

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Retina 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.

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cortesoft

2 minutes ago

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Ah, I was wondering the evolutionary reason why those genes would have gone dormant.

Cancer is a sensible answer.

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stevenwoo

55 minutes ago

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I’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/2013/06/10/1903854... 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.

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stymaar

19 minutes ago

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Liver as well, but I have no idea if that's the same underlying phenomenon.

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KellyCriterion

41 minutes ago

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2 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

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oniony

32 minutes ago

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What, last night?

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delfinom

30 minutes ago

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Lol, 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.

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catlikesshrimp

2 minutes ago

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"During the prep I said, "wow I wonder how sharp the knife"" Is there something missing in the story? (drugs, coercion, self harm ideas, anything) I have had my fair share of avoidable cuts, but none of them included looking at the edge before happening.

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buddhistdude

3 minutes ago

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Maybe that's what Jesus used on the people that he healed

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anticensor

1 hour ago

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The trick is to make regeneration fast enough to heal the wound without making fast enough to cause cancer. Maybe even supported by provisional fibrosis.

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ranger_danger

1 hour ago

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Wasn'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

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lazyasciiart

41 minutes ago

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No, the end of your finger just can 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

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ranger_danger

1 minute ago

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"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."