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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

#151

Post by marvy »

abledon wrote: post #76
marvy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes! the term "Qi" is just another way to denote the organizational electric energies our bodies use to orchestrate cellular function. This video does a way better job at describing it: https://vimeo.com/154294365 (2 minutes)

Okay, fine. Then what makes you say that children have more than adults?

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

#152

Post by chei0iaV »

PikelEmi wrote: post #130

But when then if you cut of an arm - do the body then regenerate a new arm and the cut off arm a new body ?

Unless the arm managed to quickly generate enough organs to crawl around an feed itself, it would suffocate/starve before it could generate a body.

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

#153

Post by Grishnakh »

vacri wrote: post #88

We regenerate plenty. Our bodies are constantly regenerating. We keep growing new skin to replace old (dandruff is a simple example), damaged organs can recover (eg liver problems), and even exercising to increase strength involves regeneration (broken muscle fibres grow back stronger). We don't regenerate large external body parts in general, but we do regenerate some bits quite well - like the palms of our hands. I…

That last part isn't regeneration, it's scarring. If it were regeneration, the skin would grow back just like new. The reason we scar instead of regenerating is to reduce the chance of infection; regenerating, as many simpler animals do when injured, takes longer and leaves the wound open to infection. We opted for scarring to avoid this. As for evidence of a cut afterwards, if you look at the skin under a microscope, layer by layer, you'll probably see the evidence, though it probably depends on the severity of the injury. Anything that goes through all the layers of skin leaves a scar, to my knowledge.

As for growing new skin to replace old, the new skin we grow isn't a perfect replacement. If it were, older people wouldn't have wrinkles. We have a limited healing capacity, but it's not regeneration. Regeneration would have us growing tissues that are identical to those we had when we were young, with no evidence of scarring at all.

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

#154

Post by abledon »

marvy wrote: post #151
abledon wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! the term "Qi" is just another way to denote the organizational electric energies our bodies use to orchestrate cellular function. This video does a way better job at describing it: https://vimeo.com/154294365 (2 minutes)

Okay, fine. Then what makes you say that children have more than adults?

Its more about the strength and quality rather than the quantity. As we get older the quality reduces with the rate depending on our genes, lifestyle, habits etc... Children in general, have better qi because they are 'new'.

I'm not going to go into the scientific details here and start listing off pubmed studies, but its all in that book if your interested (many references at the end of each chapter). I'm sorry the amazon link seemed to further dishearten you, I would love to know why!

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

#155

Post by ZeroFries »

erelde wrote: post #114
dualogy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This, to me, brings up the question of "where does myself ends and where does my environment begins?". Good question this! Until you find a conclusive answer, ie. until you clearly define/delineate "myself" & "env", you can ignore your follow-up question as irrelevant sophistry: > I could change parts of my brain like I'm changing the environment around me, what would I be changing, the environment around me or mys…

That question is exactly what I'm asking, what is "myself" and what is "the environment as defined around myself". And I'm pretty sure there's no clear answer, but the question and reasonings ensuing are interesting. By one definition, my possessions, my experiences, my social network would be part of myself. So changing my brain wouldn't be changing myself per se if those remained the same. Another definition would…

All abstractions leak eventually. You can't separate anything in the universe from everything else. To clone yourself perfectly (for all time-slices going forward), you'd have to clone the entire universe.

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

#156

Post by stn »

What about unwanted parts which are removed intentionally? Wisdom teeth and appendicitis come to mind. Or body parts intentionally modified by surgery. Basically, unless there is some control regarding which part to regrow, this might not always be desirable.

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

#157

Post by vacri »

devoply wrote: post #113
vacri wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans also take figuratively forever to be self-sufficient. Herd animals are born with the ability to walk, for example. Humans take about 10 years before they can be taught to be even somewhat self-sufficient, which is a ridiculously long time in comparison to others. So, given that humans are sexually mature before they're fully self-sufficient, that enhanced ability to support their offspring is not all advantage…

A 7 or 8 year old can hunt if you were to teach them to do so. An 8 year olds has conceived. So it's possible to do it at a much younger age if you have no choice.

While it may sound callous, if that 8-year-old did not produce viable offspring that could mature to reproductive age themselves, she is irrelevant to evolution. Conception is not synonymous with viable offspring.

As for the 8-year-old hunter, just how self-sufficient can they be? Procuring their own weapons, transporting their own carcasses, preparing healthy meals multiple times per day on an ongoing basis... the idea that you could just loose a 7-8 year old into the woods with a weapon and they'd survive in an ongoing sense is a bit far-fetched. Teaching someone to sneak, track, and point a gun is not the same as them being self-sufficient.

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

#158

Post by coldtea »

toasterlovin wrote: post #143
coldtea wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Living for a long time after you have children is incredibly useful from the standpoint of genetic fitness. After all, grandparents play an important role in pretty much every human culture. In the time scale that matters to evolution, grandparents played absolutely no role for the Homo Sapiens, and neither did culture.

Do you have children? Raising children is hard. And it's a lot less hard when you have other adults to help. Historically, those would be grandparents and aunts/uncles. But aunts/uncles would probably have children of their own.

"Historically" is the keyword here. Evolutionary timespans are much much larger than recorded history and human culture as we know it.

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

#159

Post by marvy »

abledon wrote: post #154
marvy wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, fine. Then what makes you say that children have more than adults?

Its more about the strength and quality rather than the quantity. As we get older the quality reduces with the rate depending on our genes, lifestyle, habits etc... Children in general, have better qi because they are 'new'. I'm not going to go into the scientific details here and start listing off pubmed studies, but its all in that book if your interested (many references at the end of each chapter). I'm sorry the…

> I would love to know why

Sorry for late response. The entire blurb on Amazon gives off a mildly pseudo-science vibe, but it is mild enough that I was willing to forgive it. But this I could not overlook:

"[...] how the hearts of two people in love (or in scientific terms `quantum entanglement') truly beat as one"

Just no. I don't know quantum mechanics, but I know enough to say that can't possibly be anywhere near right, or even vaguely plausible.

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

#160

Post by toasterlovin »

coldtea wrote: post #158
toasterlovin wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have children? Raising children is hard. And it's a lot less hard when you have other adults to help. Historically, those would be grandparents and aunts/uncles. But aunts/uncles would probably have children of their own.

"Historically" is the keyword here. Evolutionary timespans are much much larger than recorded history and human culture as we know it.

Nobody's saying that grandparents being alive are a prerequisite for grandchildren. But anybody with kids will tell you that grandparents are tremendously helpful in raising children.

Evolution is statistical in nature, not binary. Grandparents just have to be useful in raising grandchildren for them to be favored by natural selection. They don't need to be strictly necessary.

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