Scientists to study how to regrow damaged limbs

[JimS]

£10m to study how to regrow damaged limbs (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1590085,00.html?)



Perhaps the most impressive tissue regeneration occurs in salamanders, which are able to regrow entire limbs, even as adults… Experiments by Dr Amaya showed that when a front limb was clipped off a salamander, the stump [grew back] … "You can clip it off as many times as you like, it will still grow back,"



Mmmm, salamander legs, slurp! :)

[Corey]

OK, science, fine. But here's what riles my goat. Why is it that so many academics, with their brilliant brilliance and all, seem to have such *extremely* narrow tunnel vision? I mean how is it that anyone, genius or not, who has had even a passing acquaintance with nature could assume that you can change "one thing" in a system without affecting "every other thing" in that system. It's completely ludicrous.

What makes a chimpanzee different from a human is our genetic composition. There's very little difference (4-5%) between humans and chimps in that regard. But look at how *profound* that 4% difference turned out to be. Now if we start to tamper with that genetic composition in some specific way, those changes will reverberate into inexpected places, this is a given. For so called "scientists" to not be focused on that point is beyond unethical to the extent that it borders on raw unmitigated stupidity.

And the punchline of course is that the research will be driven by dollars from companies who will extrapolate the results beneficial to commercial interests and specifically hide the downside until it's too late. History is rife with example after example of exactly this. Monsanto is a *classic* case of this which is currently in full bloom.