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Our closest worm kin regrow body parts, raising hopes of regeneration in humans

washington.edu

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Re: Our closest worm kin regrow body parts, raising hopes of regeneration in humans

#41

Post by abledon »

One answer I've read in The Spark In The Machine[1], is that our cells' organizational energies (or Qi in Chinese Medicine) is not strong enough as we grow older.

Only when someone is super young (when their qi is super strong) can they regrow body parts and very small ones (the tips of the fingers!)[2]

""" Doctors have seen the effect in humans without quite understanding how it happens. "Kids will actually regrow a pretty good fingertip, after amputation, if you just leave it alone," says Dr. Christopher Allan, from the University of Washington Medicine Hand Center, who wasn't involved in the research. """

EDIT: yeah i know its HN so i'll probably get downvotes, but as far as modern science is concerned we still know very little about embryology and what actually controls the beautiful orchestration of a single cell developing into a full human in 9 months. The idea of an organization energy that directs embryological cellular function is now starting to be investigated in western science [3]

[1]https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Machine-Acupuncture-Explains-My...

[2] http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/06/10/19038548...

[3] https://vimeo.com/26761300

Re: Our closest worm kin regrow body parts, raising hopes of regeneration in humans

#42

Post by caf »

avodonosov wrote: post #26
jonknee wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If somehow we can stay alive as a species long enough we very well might be able to discover the secret to regeneration and immortality in some way. Hopefully we won't figure that out before we figure out how to not overcrowd Earth.

Forbid procreation for those who chosen immortality. If you decided to spawn children, then free space for them - die. (Or go cryopreservation and be kept in a small box occupying little space. In this case you and your decedents can live in turns: they live for one century while you sleep frozen; next century other way around).

Just as an aside, the word you're looking for is "procreation" - "recreation" refers to leisure activities.

Re: Our closest worm kin regrow body parts, raising hopes of regeneration in humans

#44

Post by avodonosov »

awqrre wrote: post #40
avodonosov wrote: post #35

It would be good to regenerate at least teeth.

that was my first thought as well ( I just had a bad dentist experience... )

I've read of a research to grow teeth from stem cells (but I'm not sure the sources of this info were reliable)

Re: Our closest worm kin regrow body parts, raising hopes of regeneration in humans

#45

Post by avodonosov »

caf wrote: post #42
avodonosov wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forbid procreation for those who chosen immortality. If you decided to spawn children, then free space for them - die. (Or go cryopreservation and be kept in a small box occupying little space. In this case you and your decedents can live in turns: they live for one century while you sleep frozen; next century other way around).

Just as an aside, the word you're looking for is "procreation" - "recreation" refers to leisure activities.

Thanks, fixed. (Although "re-creation" looked so right. Maybe I will use "reproduction").

Re: Our closest worm kin regrow body parts, raising hopes of regeneration in humans

#46

Post by mattnumbe »

badminton1 wrote: post #29
traviswingo wrote: post #9

I'm a huge believer that humans can cherry-pick the best traits of many different species and apply them to ourselves. It might sound like science fiction right now, bit give it time and we humans will have unlocked some crazy things that we claimed to be "impossible." It's always impossible until it's done. And to be honest, I think the second something is thought of, it becomes possible. I live for this shit.

Well, it depends what you consider to be "the best". If you have watched the olympics, you can see that different body types are better suited for different sports. A basketball player playing ping pong or viceversa? probably not very successful.

But if that basketball player had super speed and agility, then he would be good at both sports. You're only thinking about what humans are like now. If we could freely add and take away genetic mutations, who knows what kind of freaky immortal animals we'll look like in the future. We may also not care about sports at that point.

Re: Our closest worm kin regrow body parts, raising hopes of regeneration in humans

#47

Post by [deleted] »

mattnumbe wrote: post #46
badminton1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it depends what you consider to be "the best". If you have watched the olympics, you can see that different body types are better suited for different sports. A basketball player playing ping pong or viceversa? probably not very successful.

But if that basketball player had super speed and agility, then he would be good at both sports. You're only thinking about what humans are like now. If we could freely add and take away genetic mutations, who knows what kind of freaky immortal animals we'll look like in the future. We may also not care about sports at that point.

[deleted]

Re: Our closest worm kin regrow body parts, raising hopes of regeneration in humans

#48

Post by jostmey »

badminton1 wrote: post #36

Probably because limb regeneration wasn't a favored trait during our evolution. e.g: we managed to survive and be fertile without it. Rather than limb regeneration we evolved pain and fear to prevent losing a limb in the first place. A similar question would be why aren't fruit toxic so animals stop eating them? Because they pass their genes anyways. Rather than that, animals that were too good at eating fruit, destr…

You are spot on correct. And regenerating lost body parts will require far more than just flipping the activation of a few genes.

Re: Our closest worm kin regrow body parts, raising hopes of regeneration in humans

#49

Post by astrodust »

mattnumbe wrote: post #46
badminton1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it depends what you consider to be "the best". If you have watched the olympics, you can see that different body types are better suited for different sports. A basketball player playing ping pong or viceversa? probably not very successful.

But if that basketball player had super speed and agility, then he would be good at both sports. You're only thinking about what humans are like now. If we could freely add and take away genetic mutations, who knows what kind of freaky immortal animals we'll look like in the future. We may also not care about sports at that point.

Mechanically there's an advantage to shorter limbs for particular sports, that's just how physics works.

If a basketball player could be made super-human they might trounce ordinary ping-pong players, but a super-human ping-pong player would destroy them.

Plus there's more to these sports than any one aspect. It's never just strength or height or stamina, it's a complex of factors. Finding that optimal even given all the options might be difficult. There's intrinsic trade-offs.

For example, there's two kinds of muscle tissue, that better suited to fine motor skills and that suited to brute strength. Most animals are heavily stacked in the latter category, that's why a chimpanzee can tear you in half, but they lack the sorts of fine control that permits us to do things like type with agility and write precisely.

Re: Our closest worm kin regrow body parts, raising hopes of regeneration in humans

#50

Post by traviswingo »

traviswingo wrote: post #9

I'm a huge believer that humans can cherry-pick the best traits of many different species and apply them to ourselves. It might sound like science fiction right now, bit give it time and we humans will have unlocked some crazy things that we claimed to be "impossible." It's always impossible until it's done. And to be honest, I think the second something is thought of, it becomes possible. I live for this shit.

Whoever down voted this is boring.
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