Posted on 03/18/2008 6:47:11 PM PDT by Flavius
Progress on the road to regenerating major body parts, salamander-style, could transform the treatment of amputations and major wounds
* The gold standard for limb regeneration is the salamander, which can grow perfect replacements for lost body parts throughout its lifetime. Understanding how can provide a road map for human limb regeneration. * The early responses of tissues at an amputation site are not that different in salamanders and in humans, but eventually human tissues form a scar, whereas the salamander’s reactivate an embryonic development program to build a new limb. * Learning to control the human wound environment to trigger salamanderlike healing could make it possible to regenerate large body parts.
A salamander’s limbs are smaller and a bit slimier than those of most people, but otherwise they are not that different from their human counterparts. The salamander limb is encased in skin, and inside it is composed of a bony skeleton, muscles, ligaments, tendons, nerves and blood vessels. A loose arrangement of cells called fibroblasts holds all these internal tissues together and gives the limb its shape.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciam.com ...
well if they regrow all organs
thats perpetual life
also it reminds me of the story of Shepard in a desert fixing ears and such
John Bobbit is investigating this great news as we speak.
I cut the end of my thumb off in 1992.
It grew back.
[but then again, I *am* a salamander]......8:)
that video i posted is very good you should look at it
Paging Jim Bobbitt. Jim Bobbitt, please pick up the white courtesy phone.
OMG! “A Wrinkle in Time as children.”
I was one of those kids and that book made a huge impression on me at the time. We had to read it in 4th grade. I haven’t heard it mentioned in ages (and I mean AGES)!
One day we noticed Bass was getting some sort of cobwebby fungus, so Matt transferred him to a very small tank just for a few days for intensive medication. The fish would hover in his small tank and stare longingly back at the big tank.
One afternoon, Matt came home to find Bass on the floor. He'd jumped out the thin opening in the back of the tank where the florescent light had been removed. He seemed to have been trying to get back to his old tank. But he must have lain on the floor for a half hour. He was dried out, his eyes were black, his gills barely moving.
Matt scooped him up, put him back in the big tank, and started dragging him through the water, back and forth, by the mouth, like you'd do a shark to revive him. He did this for about a half hour. Finally Bass started breathing on his own, but he just sank to the floor of the tank and lay propped there like a zombie for days. His eyes were black and glassy, he didn't eat, didn't respond to anything... and his tail, which was thin, had dried out and simply fell off.
Gradually, however, Bass started to make a come back. After about a week he started swimming around again, slowly, kind of dazedly. Then he started eating again. His eyes gradually lightened to hazel again, and he became aware of us once more. And ever so slowly, his tail grew back, but much darker, almost black.
When he was completely recovered, we took him back to the lake where Matt had caught him. We sat the bucket in the water with him in it and added lake water a little at a time so the temperature change wouldn't shock him. Finally we tipped the bucket over, and Bass swam forward about three feet and stopped. Then another three feet. Then he gave a twitch of his new, dark tail, and shot off into the lake, out of sight. I hope he lived long and prospered.
No, you must have a tail but if you don't object to a nail growing out your rear, maybe.
Paging John Bobbitt, please pick up the white courtesy phone, John Bobbitt ...
Fascinating! Thanks!
Related ping.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1972048/posts
salamander bump
I shaved my head one summer and in four months — voila ! I had a full of head of hair again. Hair follicles have amazing regenerative ability. One of these days I will have to cut off my head and see if I can grow a new one.
What about the fifth limb?
I did the same thing. Cut off the tip of my pointer finger making a salad with company over. I cut the entire end off, some of the finger nail and everything. I was screaming pretty good, lots of blood! Threw away the salad. Wrapped it up for a few weeks, then forgot about it. A year later the same friends were over again and we were laughing about what had happened, they looked at my finger and freaked out. It had completely grown back, I hadn’t really noticed as it was a really slow process but they couldn’t believe it.
>Imagine teething at the age of 40!
Imagine all the dentists out of work!
Bmfl, great thread!
I guess that depends - are you right or left handed....
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