While some other creatures, most notably salamanders and starfish, can regenerate entire limbs, mammals don't have this evolutionary superpower. The big question is: Why are mammals limited?
Chronic inflammation is a central driver of pathological fibrosis after ischaemic or haemodynamic stress, but strategies that locally rebalance injurious and reparative immune responses without systemic immunosuppression are lacking.
The body of the robotic fingers is built from polyglycerol sebacate, a synthetic elastomer made from glycerol and sebacic acid. Glycerol is a byproduct of biodiesel production while sebacic acid is derived from castor oil, and both of them are plant-based. Polyglycerol sebacate is safe since it is already used in medical implants because the body can absorb it without a toxic response.
I am running. Ahead lie endless mangrove swamps, behind the green-blue waters of the Caribbean. My mind is rising away from my lurching body, which is on a treadmill and attached to a beeping machine by wires and tubes. Nurses circle. The gradient increases, as does the speed. Dignity slips away as my body fights for breath. They're after my "VO2 max", the amount of oxygen my body can absorb during my maximum capacity for exercise.
When you have an acute injury, your body is sending signals through the peripheral and central nervous systems and the immune system to say, hold on, I need to stop doing this so we can allow the tissue to heal, says Ericka Merriwether, a physical therapist and pain researcher at New York University. Rest, after all, is the first part of the familiar RICE therapy, which stands for rest, ice, compression and elevation.
'Stem cell-based' treatments and just the latest aesthetic treatment marketed to those seeking to maintain or obtain youthful skin, but what exactly is involved and what's the evidence that they work It's hard to keep track of the number of scientifically based beauty treatments on offer these days. Most are aimed at middle-aged females with disposable incomes, who are willing to splash large amounts of money on their skin to counter the effects of time.
When surgeons removed a 33-year-old woman's right lung as part of her cancer treatment in 1995, they expected a dramatic and permanent reduction in her breathing power. But that's not what happened. Instead, her remaining lung pulled off a trick that scientists had long thought impossible in humans: it grew new tissue, and lots of it. Over the next 15 years, her left lung compensated for the loss of its partner by nearly doubling in volume and growing millions of new air sacs, called alveoli.
A study led by Stanford Medicine researchers has found that an injection blocking a protein linked to aging can reverse the natural loss of knee cartilage in older mice. The same treatment also stopped arthritis from developing after knee injuries that resemble ACL tears, which are common among athletes and recreational exercisers. Researchers note that an oral version of the treatment is already being tested in clinical trials aimed at treating age-related muscle weakness.
It's a watershed moment in aesthetic medicine, resonating across age groups. "Younger people are coming in with concerns about texture, tone, inflammation, early laxity, and how their skin behaves under stress," observes Dr. David Jack, an aesthetic doctor renowned for his light touch. "While more mature patients - many of whom have already had filler - are increasingly aware that volume alone does not age well if the architecture beneath it continues to degrade."
A 33-year-old man survived for 48 hours without his lungs, after a medical team replaced the organs with an external artificial-lung system that it developed to keep him alive until he could receive a double lung transplant. There have been cases in which people have had their lungs removed and been connected to an external device to maintain oxygen levels.
Anais Muczynski, 36, an orthoptist who lives with her husband Vincent Muczynski, 41, a researcher, received her primary breast cancer diagnosis in January 2023 after discovering a quail egg-sized lump in her left breast. At the time, the London-based couple were "optimistic", as it was stage one meaning the cancer was only in the breast tissue or in the lymph nodes close to the breast and she underwent chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and a double mastectomy.
