Human regeneration

The Wall Street Journal (no link available) reports that scientists are treating wounded Iraqi War veterans with a substance from pigs that seems to resurrect the ability to regenerate organs and other body parts--an ability possessed by fetuses but lost after birth. In this case, the scientists hope to regenerate parts of fingers the soldiers lost. From the story: "Doctors plan to treat them with a fine powder called extracellular matrix, harvested from pig bladders. The material, found in all animals, is the scaffolding that cells latch onto as they divide and grow into tissue and body parts. In the human body, it was long thought to be inert. But scientists have discovered that it appears to activate latent biological processes that spur healing and regenerate tissue."^{\[\[1\]\]\[ref1\]}

Wow.

[ref1]: http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2007/02/growing-new-fingers-from-pig-matrix.html " Growing New Fingers From 'Pig Matrix?'"