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posted by on Friday December 02 2016, @03:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the it-works-for-wolverine dept.

Some of our closest invertebrate cousins, like this Acorn worm, have the ability to perfectly regenerate any part of their body that's cut off - including the head and nervous system. Humans have most of the same genes, so scientists are trying to work out whether human regeneration is possible, too.

Regeneration – now that'd be a nice superpower to have. Injure an arm? Chop it off and wait for it to grow back. Dicky knee? Ingrown toenail? Lop off your leg and get two for one!

It sounds ridiculous, but there's a growing number of scientists that believe body part regeneration is not only possible, but achievable in humans. After all, not only are there plenty of animals that can do it, we can do it ourselves for our skin, nails, and bits of other organs.

Perhaps humans don't regrow body parts because, unlike worms, they have an idea 'how much that stings.'


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 02 2016, @06:57AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 02 2016, @06:57AM (#435842) Journal

    we don't do anything that really requires new teeth

    Eating. Teeth get lost through injury or illness.

  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday December 02 2016, @08:44AM

    by anubi (2828) on Friday December 02 2016, @08:44AM (#435861) Journal

    Exactly. Abrasion. The perfect businessword for dental insurance... not covered if the problem is a result of abrasion.

    So I ended up paying full price for a crown when I thought I was "covered".

    Coverage, my ass. I was just about as covered as a pretty girl at the beach wearing a string bikini, but not nearly as sweet to look at.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2) by quacking duck on Friday December 02 2016, @02:24PM

      by quacking duck (1395) on Friday December 02 2016, @02:24PM (#435932)

      I may be getting a crown myself in the near-ish future. Did you submit a pre-determination before getting the procedure done, to see if your insurer would in fact cover it?

      • (Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday December 03 2016, @05:32AM

        by anubi (2828) on Saturday December 03 2016, @05:32AM (#436412) Journal

        I had my first go-around with insurance about ten years ago. I had a terrible misunderstanding of the word "covered".

        The first thing my dentist did was give me an estimate of dental work, then when I questioned why the bill was so high when I supposedly was "covered" by insurance, I was told that my "erosion" was due to "abrasion" ( aka. grinding teeth at night ), and not covered. His estimate was full of "not covered".

        I dropped my dental insurance the next day. The dentist told me the only thing that my so-called "insurance" paid for was the office visit, exam, and cleaning. The rest was "peace-of-mind" talk to give me the illusion of being covered so I would continue to pay the premiums.

        It sounded good until one reads the exclusions. Anything pricey? Not covered. They say it is in big print, but have another clause somewhere else in small print that says it isn't.

        It finally sank in.

        Where do insurance companies get the money to pay for all that staff, big buildings, and advertising? Gullible people like ME, who are under the illusion of thinking someone else is gonna pay my bills.

        I had to wake up to the notion I was just being taken along for a ride at my expense.

        Covered, my ass.

        Speaking in retrospect ten years later ( I just had dental work done today, incidentally ), I am coming out better by paying the dentist directly - and I am speaking as one who has spent over ten thousand dollars in dental work over the last twenty years. ( works out to about $500/year ... most of it going into coronation ceremonies, aka "crowns" ).

        I am over 65, for what that's worth... but still find dental insurance a very poor deal. You like to *think* you are covered, but all you seem to do is finance a hierarchy of desk hens to shuffle paperwork back and forth and finance rounds of high salaries and bonuses for insurance executives. They aren't making money come out of thin air to pay your bills. They just play games with words to make it *sound* like a peace-of-mind move, until the bill comes due - and you are left holding the bag.

        Or, at least, that has been my experience with those goons.

        --
        "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Francis on Saturday December 03 2016, @04:41PM

    by Francis (5544) on Saturday December 03 2016, @04:41PM (#436550)

    Eating, never destroys teeth unless you're nutritionally deficient already. If your getting sufficient amounts of calcium, vitamin D, mangesium and the other necessary ingredients of teeth as well as being in generally good health, you should never have problems with teeth decalcifying. Our teeth were evolved to survive to an age of nearly a hundred and they generally do that just fine as long as you're not deficient in the necessary building blocks of healthy teeth.

    Likewise, it's more or less impossible to get a cavity forming in a healthy tooth. It just doesn't happen as the tooth never weakens enough for it to happen due to the constant outflow of minerals.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 03 2016, @05:04PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 03 2016, @05:04PM (#436557) Journal
      Most foods require teeth to eat.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:48AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:48AM (#438197)

        Yes, but there's no evidence that eating causes damage to teeth. As long as your getting adequate vitamins and minerals, the teeth will continually remineralize to deal with that damage. We evolved to live decades without access to dentists.