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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

#61

Post by Gustomaximus »

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.

> Well, it depends what you consider to be "the best".

There are clearly traits that are best, bar exceptionally rare scenario e.g. regenerating a lost limb, improved hearing, or improved longevity. So while I understand your analogy will fit some option, it is limiting too assume there will always be a trade off.

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

#62

Post by dpark »

kingname wrote: post #58

Do you know cancer? The cancer is the ability of regenerate from the very begin in human's history. But we lost the ability of control cancel cells and it became an illness.

What is this claim based on? This sounds like speculation.

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

#63

Post by Jerry2 »

Few years back I remember reading a story about the guy who lost his finger in an accident and then regrew it by dipping it into some kind of a powder.

Edit: found it!

>The magical formula to regrow a finger apparently includes a doctor, a pig, and some “pixie dust.” This is no fairytale, though; this is a medical breakthrough being explored at the University of Pittsburgh, Pa. In Science Channel’s video, “How to Grow a New Fingertip,” Dr. Stephen Badylak from the university explains regenerative medicine has the potential to grow a whole human body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtBUM51t4iw

http://www.medicaldaily.com/pulse/magical-pixie-dust-pigs-bl...

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

#64

Post by PhasmaFelis »

SilasX wrote: post #7
PeterisP wrote: post #2

Well, a plausible answer is that if we (or random mutations) re-enable those genes then the end result is simply a lot of cancer. A reasonable default assumption is that each switch in our "genetic configuration" is set to a quite good value. The only exception is if we see a feature that is beneficial at a high calorie cost - those features have been (reasonably) optimized away during our evolution, but would be use…

>Well, a plausible answer is that if we (or random mutations) re-enable those genes then the end result is simply a lot of cancer. Interesting idea, but does the risk of cancer have that much selective pressure? It tends to be the "last thing that kills you", after you live long enough to survive everything else. So it seems like any increased risk of cancer would have to be pretty high before it traded off against i…

> Interesting idea, but does the risk of cancer have that much selective pressure? It tends to be the "last thing that kills you", after you live long enough to survive everything else.

You're assuming that's the default state, rather than the result of millions of years of cancer-preventing trade-offs. If e.g. being able to regenerate lost limbs gives you a 10% chance of dying of out-of-control cancer before reaching breeding age, that trait is going to be selected out fairly rapidly.

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

#65

Post by derekp7 »

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…

Fruit relies on being eating to assist in seed dispersal (notice how the seeds are usually cast aside?). Also, most of the fruit that you find in the supermarket are selectively bred to have quite a bit more flesh to them.

Oh, and lemmings don't mass suicide. That's a myth that came about cause of Disney.

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

#66

Post by marvy »

abledon wrote: post #41

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…

I am kind of doubtful about this Qi business. I followed the amazon link you gave and it made it even more doubtful.

Nevertheless, I gave you an upvote, because I had no idea fingertips could ever regrow; that's really cool!

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with the third link. Are you saying Qi is electric?

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

#67

Post by dpark »

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…

> Another interesting phenomenon are lemmings. Why lemmings kill themselves en-masse? Because they're too fertile. And as a population their own way to control their size is to mass suicide.

Lemmings don't commit mass suicide.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemming#Misconceptions

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

#68

Post by marvy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #37
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).

> Forbid recreation for those who chosen immortality How do you police sex in a democracy?

The same way you police it in a dictatorship, or any other form of government. Just do what China does for its one child policy, except that it would be a zero child policy. I doubt this is a good idea though.

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

#69

Post by dpark »

derekp7 wrote: post #65
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…

Fruit relies on being eating to assist in seed dispersal (notice how the seeds are usually cast aside?). Also, most of the fruit that you find in the supermarket are selectively bred to have quite a bit more flesh to them. Oh, and lemmings don't mass suicide. That's a myth that came about cause of Disney.

The myth existed before Disney, but they did perpetuate it (and kill a bunch of lemmings).

http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.asp

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

#70

Post by Turing_Machine »

avodonosov wrote: post #35

It would be good to regenerate at least teeth.

Teeth might also be a good area to look at in terms of figuring out how it works. Since most people already grow two full sets of teeth, and I believe there are numerous cases on record of people who have grown more than that, perhaps the regeneration genes are already partially activated in that region of the body.
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