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csr86 38 minutes ago [-]
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.
cortesoft 30 minutes ago [-]
Ah, I was wondering the evolutionary reason why those genes would have gone dormant.
Cancer is a sensible answer.
stevenwoo 1 hours ago [-]
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.
roarcher 16 minutes ago [-]
Does your fingerprint look normal? When I was a kid I was goofing around with a pair of scissors and lopped off a good chunk of the pad of one finger. Thirty years later my fingerprint looks like a bunch of little dots at that location. The ridges never grew back properly.
VladVladikoff 14 minutes ago [-]
Same. Chopped off the tip of my thumb with an axe, it’s healed but very scarred and fingerprint is not normal.
adamors 17 minutes ago [-]
The exact same thing happened to me. I chopped off a good half a cm with an axe when splitting firewood about 5 years ago. After no less than 6 months there wasn’t any sign of the mutilation.
KellyCriterion 1 hours ago [-]
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
oniony 59 minutes ago [-]
What, last night?
delfinom 57 minutes ago [-]
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.
catlikesshrimp 30 minutes ago [-]
"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.
delfinom 6 minutes ago [-]
I didn't look at the edge, I was just thinking of that idea while slicing some vegetables and coincidentally not paying attention at the same time.
rpastuszak 20 minutes ago [-]
Irony deficiency
stymaar 46 minutes ago [-]
Liver as well, but I have no idea if that's the same underlying phenomenon.
anticensor 2 hours ago [-]
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.
ck_one 22 minutes ago [-]
Does that mean zebra fish with their ability to regrow the retina get cancer at a higher rate?
NotGMan 2 minutes ago [-]
In 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.
"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."
nryoo 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
buddhistdude 30 minutes ago [-]
Maybe that's what Jesus used on the people that he healed
cheema33 14 minutes 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 11 minutes ago [-]
Jesus, if he existed, didn't actually heal anyone or perform any miracles. That's mythology, not reality.
buddhistdude 10 minutes ago [-]
How do you know?
krapp 9 minutes ago [-]
Because I'm a grownup who knows the difference between reality and make-believe.
buddhistdude 7 minutes ago [-]
I take from this that you don't, otherwise you would explain it
krapp 6 minutes ago [-]
You're the one who believes magic is real, it's up to you to explain it. Extraordinary claims and such.
I have other retina permanently damaged, and suffer from double vision when looking small objects like text.
Cancer is a sensible answer.
Until today, it recovered completely
Besides the blood getting everywhere and needing superglue to stop it, it grew back completely fine.
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://as.tufts.edu/biology/tufts-center-regenerative-and-d...
Found it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7354458.stm
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
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."
I think this is what all healers used. They were all way ahead of their time and clearly misunderstood.