Read "The Body Electric", 1998, by Robert O' Becker MD.
Also, read "Cross Currents" by same author.
How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs
101–105 of 105 posts
Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs
#102You know, at first I thought this was a load of wank but thinking about it, it does make sense that electricity is used for signalling everything. How does the brain wire itself up? How do cells figure out what to attach to? There must be some sort of mechanism for them to locally communicate.
So if you could give them the signal to reproduce and then signal them to form a structure, it's plausible they would be able to rebuild something.
Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs
#103This technology doesn't seem to be limited to existing limbs and organs. After replacing a missing arm you could add a third arm. A man could grow a uterus since he has the X chromosomes and with a transplant that includes Y chromosomes, a woman could grow testes. Parthenogenesis could become a choice. Another head seems possible. The limits are more likely to come from regulation than a reluctance of people to trans…
Start with something simple and wonderful like growing a new set of teeth.
To be honest I would prefer something non-trivil like fixing broken spinal-column disks ;-)
Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, AFAIK Becker's "The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life" is pretty much all there was until Michael Levin came along and picked up the torch. IMO it's one of those weird "holes": why so little interest in human tissue regeneration?
> why so little interest in human tissue regeneration? There's this HN comment I've always found interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32744294
That is interesting, cheers!