[snarks_when_bored]

This is on-going research, but if what's happening with these mice is verified and can be fully understood, the implications for human tissue regeneration could be huge.

[aposiopetic]

Professor Heber-Katz made her discovery when she noticed the identification holes that scientists punch in the ears of experimental mice healed without any signs of scarring in the animals at her laboratory.

Attention to detail pays off. Here is someone who sought an explanation for an interesting phenomenon instead of just going ahead with pre-planned experiments.

This is (at least some of) what science is supposed to be.

[Ichneumon]

In one case the mice had their toes amputated -- but the digits grew back, complete with joints.

I can believe a lot of the other claims, but *this* one just doesn't seem very plausible. The formation of joints in the fetus is complex process involving a lot of "scaffolding" and subsequent programmed cell death, both of which don't seeme feasible in non-fetal conditions, especially when attached to amutated adult tissues. In short, the kind of "cellular coordination" that's possible (and necessary) during fetal growth doesn't seem possible on the "stump" of an adult limb. At least not to the point of producing a working, healthy joint as opposed to a rudimentary shadow of one.

I can't say I would mind being proved wrong, though, it would be wonderful if it were actually possible.

[RinaseaofDs]

This is a cure for MS. MS is when the myelin on the outside of the nerves and spinal cord develops gaps in it from deterioration, preventing the electrical signals from getting from the brain to the muscles.

This would fix that right now.

[Born Conservative]

[Maigrey]

But there was one part of the article that will make all of this ethically questionable: the researchers utilized fetal cells to form the regeneration.

So, when will they begin the experiments utilizing non-fetal cells for this research? Until then, I won't be choosing to subsidize these endeavors.

Tho it is impressive, but not at the cost of life itself.