Grow Your Own

vimothy

yurp
The man who grew a finger:

"I put my finger in," Mr Spievak says, pointing towards the propeller of a model airplane, "and that's when I sliced my finger off."

It took the end right off, down to the bone, about half an inch.

"We don't know where the piece went."

The photos of his severed finger tip are pretty graphic. You can understand why doctors said he'd lost it for good.

Today though, you wouldn't know it. Mr Spievak, who is 69 years old, shows off his finger, and it's all there, tissue, nerves, nail, skin, even his finger print.

'Pixie dust'

How? Well that's the truly remarkable part. It wasn't a transplant. Mr Spievak re-grew his finger tip. He used a powder - or pixie dust as he sometimes refers to it while telling his story.

Mr Speivak's brother Alan - who was working in the field of regenerative medicine - sent him the powder.

For ten days Mr Spievak put a little on his finger.

"The second time I put it on I already could see growth. Each day it was up further. Finally it closed up and was a finger.

"It took about four weeks before it was sealed."

Now he says he has "complete feeling, complete movement."​

Wonder if it's true. Hope so -- pretty goddamn sci-fi!
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Groovy. I read somewhere that all human limbs, tissues and organs actually have the power of regeneration, it's just wounds tend to scab over and heal (leading to a stump) before this can happen. If you could prevent this healing process, the lost body part would actually regrow - the tricky part is, of course, that to prevent the healing would generally lead to death through blood loss and/or infection. So maybe this 'pixie dust' somehow stops conventional healing while preventing bleeding and necrosis?
 
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