This lizard regrows its entire head
No, you're not dreaming. This lizard can totally regrow its head and limbs!
If you cut off an axolotl's leg, it just grows a new one
How hard do you think this was for science to crack?
The answer says more about you than about the discovery.
- No, you're not dreaming. This lizard can totally regrow its head and limbs!
- Transplantation is even stranger in their world.
- Even after a full recovery, the newly grown organs contain no trace of the injury, leaving the axolotl with a body that can technically be older th…
If you lose an arm, your body rushes to build a wall of scar tissue to keep the outside world out. The axolotl does the opposite.
Instead of scarring, it reverts its mature cells back into stem cells to build a "blastema," a tiny nub of biological possibility that can become bone, muscle, or nerve. Within weeks, the salamander has a brand-new limb that is indistinguishable from the original, down to the last blood vessel.
It doesn't stop at limbs. Scientists have crushed chunks of an axolotl’s heart and watched it rebuild the muscle in days without a drop in blood pressure. They have even removed sections of its brain, only to find the creature regrowing the missing lobes and re-establishing the neurons required to function as if nothing had ever happened.
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