http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1754008,00.html

Can we say, 'Wolverine?'

If we can do this for people, it'll be the most significant advance in human medicine, EVER. You could almost kiss organ replacement goodbye.

...It can do more than that. They're right about thinking this can increase lifespan. People age because of damage to their cells, if I recall correctly - just imagine if it could fix that sort of damage. Says it doesn't fix the brains, though, so it's definately not immortality... but hell, I'll take it anyway.

Point, but that would cause everybody to die (Naturally) of a stroke, or some other brain-related disease, not a pleasent way to go.

A lot worse, I'd think, to have the body-related diseased and then possibly die of one, or maybe of something body-related. But that's just me.

Strangely, I can only pity those poor little mice... getting their eyes fried, toes cut off, tails nipped, all for the sake of science.

Other than that, interesting experiment.

It would also probably cause more deaths from cancers, as worn out DNA starts producing the improper replacement cell. So, I doubt immortality is an option in the long term.

That having been said, however, in the short term it's a fantastic boon. Especially if nerve tissues also regenerate... which doesn't seem to be happening here.

Hmm...this seems hoax-esque to me. But if it's real...holy F-ing S!

Obviously it wouldn't be immortality but it'd increase the life expectancy considerably...maybe, into the 80s or 90s?

Seriously. Got pancreatic cancer? No problem! Scoop it out and grow another one. Smoked for 30 years and got lung cancer? Okay. Scoop 'em out and grow new ones.

This kind of thing would revolutionize medicine and literally change our way of life. I forsee that this amazing miracle will be opposed by lots of idiots because of the whole stem cell thing--even though stem cells aren't involved in the process, the idea of regenerating cells are connected with stem cells and thus abortion. So foolish.

You know Malice, I want to disbelieve that people won't try to dissalow this regeneration stuff if it ever becomes available. It is growing cells from your own body, but at a faster rate. Still though, it is very easy to picture this is bad, by associating it with something totally unrelated...

Couldn't this proscess cause more slight gene mutations though? If the cells are reproducing faster, they also have a greater chance to get some parts of DNA messed up in transcription. But I could be totally wrong.

Crake, you're right, but the natural rate of mutation is so slow that it wouldn't matter. Cell mutation happens because of exposure to UV radiation, exposure to carcinogens, and so on. It doesn't naturally happen except very slowly.

I don't think very many people would oppose this save for the insanest of the insane. The regular insane religious people might frown a bit, but it'd only be the Falwell level crazies who'd oppose it.

The aging process is more complicated than that, with many changes pre-programmed into our cells, even some dealing with what we would call "old age".

I thought ageing occured because cell's couldn't reproduce themselfs because the dna string is to short.

(For people not knowing what I say, this is what I remeberd:
On the dna-strings there are genes. A little thingie (forgot the name) in our cellcores attach itself to the dna string, wich is, as we all know, a double helix, and splits that helix in two. That happens with alll the dna strings in our cellcores. If they are all split, the cells split, and you have two cells. In the new cores, another thingie takes the singel helixes, and makes a second helix for every other one, because they know wich one fits on another thingy on the helix. (I forgot how those thinys are called A, T, G and C in Dutch, I thought) so they make the second helix and voila, two identical cells. But the thing is, while the second thing attach itselfs to the helix, it has to attach somewhere, in the beginning, and it can't reads the place where it attach itselfs, meaning there wont be an supplementary helix for that one thing. It was roughly something like that. The point is, every time a dna-string gets duplicated, it becomes shorter. But don't use this on an exams, I'm not to sure myself ;) )

So, this wouldn't help at all for aging, now would it? I haven't read the article because I heard something about this in the news on the radio a few days ago, so I don't know if they use the dna that excists in the body, but if so, the new dna can't be better then the old one, meaning it will die at the same moment. Or, even more, that dna has to split a lot before there is a new limb, so doens't that mean it will die even faster? Funny that would be.
Imagine how you wake up at the morning, look under the sheets and say: "Honey, I think I lost a limb"

But anyway, is their some biologe or something that can agree on my, hmm, thinking?

thanks and sorry for my vocabulary, are the lacking of it ;)

Btr0n, you are talking about telomeres; the sections of DNA repeat sequences at the end of chromosomes that compensate for the difficulty of replicating DNA at the ends of the molecule. They shorten during the life of individual and are implicated in aging, but we don't really know the exact causes of aging.

Here is the wikipedia page on telomeres.

I always sort of intuitively thought we evolved aging as we did so available resources would be given to those who are more likely to successfully reproduce...a rare instance when a death of an individual is what's most likely to ensure the passing on of genes and survival of community.

But that's a totally different conversation.

I heard something somewhere that the upper limit of cell life is 250 years-ish.