Man Grows Finger Back... USING 'PIXIE DUST'?!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Level 18
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
1,612
The article is quite unbelievable. You can read it here first before you reply.

"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."



It was hard for me to believe until I saw the video at the top of the article and that the U.S. military is interested in using it. To me it seems like something that is way beyond the realm of this world (the fact that it regrows nerves, tissue, etc.) but who knows, it could just be a modern medical miracle. Either way it is truly amazing.

More sources for you skeptics:


CBS News

Suite 101
 
Level 40
Joined
Dec 14, 2005
Messages
10,532
From what I heard, all the powder does is prevent scabs from forming, and apparently with the scab growing function of your body turned off, it initiates the regeneration function which generally has low enough precedence that it is never activated.

Unconfirmed though, but yeah, cool stuff.

EDIT: Confirmed from the BBC article's content.
 
Level 35
Joined
May 22, 2007
Messages
5,366
Now all we have to deal with is a total monopolization of the substance and watch as it totally becomes unusable to the poor, the needy, the amputated, and those without limbs.

And it probably causes cancer like everything else on the face of the earth, and including everything orbiting it/us orbiting.
 
Level 18
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
1,612
Now all we have to deal with is a total monopolization of the substance and watch as it totally becomes unusable to the poor, the needy, the amputated, and those without limbs.

And it probably causes cancer like everything else on the face of the earth, and including everything orbiting it/us orbiting.

I doubt that will happen unless Big-Pharm gets word of it and then tries in every way possible to make it inaccessible to most or all people so they can continue to sell their drugs to people and make them think they need them.
 
Level 12
Joined
Aug 20, 2007
Messages
866
You guys are fucked up

No seriously, this sounds like total BS to me

Something that can make regular cells act like stem cells, I caught wind of a rumor of that, but I was unsure

Holy sh*t they got it coded to regrow a fucking finger?!!?!?

I mean, shit we are flying around in massive jet planes, and cloning animals
So I s'pose we have the capability...

But I will say that is complete BS until I cut my own finger off and grow a new one (which I probably won't ever do, consciously, so I'd drug a friend :smile:)
 
So it doesn't grow back bones?

Why is he saying he has "full mobility" then?


EDIT: Ok, forget about this. This is total BS. Humans don't grow back fingers, and if this was real than it would make front page and every single medical scientist on this planet would start giving a shit. So far I haven't seen much response from them.
 
Level 34
Joined
Jul 4, 2007
Messages
5,552
You know, I bet they wont even shall use it in civilian environments, the Americans will use it only for their president if it cuts his finger while the rest of the world suffers with a blown leg off. Claiming to cost billions of dollars because it needs special materials. Bah, it are probally normal household ingredients. And off course, when they find a solution, they always need a cause: Bioweaponry. Launch the SCUDs!
 
Level 12
Joined
Aug 20, 2007
Messages
866
Uhhh, I don't know if you were kidding or not, but all the charity foundations here donated like billions of dollars to africa in the past 20 years...

And at that, we might not even have a male president when this gets big (although I seriously doubt it)
 
Level 36
Joined
Mar 15, 2006
Messages
7,945
It's really not BS, it's a report by the BBC (credible source) and it's currently being researched by the University of Pittsburgh. Don't say it's BS before you even read the article.

Just like the BBC reported on that Hitler Doll story, which turned out to be a hoax. Never take news at face value, 90% of the time it's so rushed out the door that factual inaccuracies and misinformation are abound.
 
Level 12
Joined
Aug 20, 2007
Messages
866
Yeah I don't know much about fingerprints, all I know is that DNA is the code for all life, we finished the Human Genome Project somewhat recently (don't recall the latest date) or a bit of a long time ago in terms of technology (like 5-10 years or something) and I haven't heard of any tremendous DNA breakthroughs in a while

I really wouldn't be baffled if this was true, just amazed at how far we have gotten
 
Level 27
Joined
May 30, 2007
Messages
2,872
What more do you want us to do, cure global poverty?
Please and thank you.


I believe this story. I don't see what's so hard to believe, animals regenerate all the time. You can cut a starfish into many pieces, and every piece will grow into a full starfish.

I think it's cool that after all these years, the body still knows how to make itself if it needs to.
 
Level 40
Joined
Dec 14, 2005
Messages
10,532
Just like the BBC reported on that Hitler Doll story, which turned out to be a hoax. Never take news at face value, 90% of the time it's so rushed out the door that factual inaccuracies and misinformation are abound.
While I agree that often news is produced too fast to check its facts, I doubt that they would outright lie, and I don't see how in this case they could come to this conclusion any other way, unless it was true or they were lying.
 
Level 24
Joined
Jun 26, 2006
Messages
3,406
About finger-prints: A person's finger prints are completely independent of that person's DNA. Identical twins have different finger prints. Finger prints are not necessarily folds in the skin, but ridges. If the man truly grew his finger back, it is extremely unlikely that he would have the same finger print, although it's probable that he would have one.

About regeneration: Most animals have the latent ability to completely regenerate limbs, although the ability is minimized in mammals. A substance that is able to capitalize on that latent regenerative ability is not outside the realm of possibility.

TDB: Don't be a useless anti-US fuck. The ingredients are far from household, and must be prepared exclusively in a laboratory, though it would hardly cost billions of dollars for enough for one person. Also, just because US politicians tend not to represent the US populace, no matter how badly the populace tries to elect politicians that do, doesn't mean that anyone except for you is that utterly stupid. Really, calling you retarded is insulting to the intelligence of special ed kids. If such a situation ever did arise, the US legal system allows for politicians to be replaced fairly quickly, especially for outrages like that, and politicians tend to not want to be replaced.
 
Level 18
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
1,612
I don't know whether if I could in this forum I'd neg or pos rep you, Teh_Ephy. You made a ton of great points that I fully agree with but you also might have just started a flame war with TDB by calling him a "useless anti-US fuck". So I suppose it's good that we can't rep here because mine would cancel themselves out anyway :thumbs_up:
 
Level 15
Joined
Nov 1, 2004
Messages
1,058
Just for the record: This topic is very interesting, but political discussion really has very little to do with the original topic. If this continues, then I will close the topic. Thank you.
 
Level 24
Joined
Jun 26, 2006
Messages
3,406
you also might have just started a flame war with TDB by calling him a "useless anti-US fuck". So I suppose it's good that we can't rep here because mine would cancel themselves out anyway :thumbs_up:

This is not the first instance of TDB being a useless anti-US fuck, this is the first instance of TDB being a useless anti-US fuck that got me fed up enough to flame him. I would take whatever neg rep it would take to get him to stop spouting that incredibly ignorant and biased idiocy. My apologies, Samuraid.

Anyways, the title of the thread (as well as the BBC article) are slightly misleading. I saw "Pixie dust" and immediately thought "bullshit, hoax." I read the article, and saw "extracellular matrix" and thought "so why the hell did they call it 'pixie dust?'" I've read about extracellular matrix, in an article in Discover Magazine about growing a girl a whole new urinary bladder, as well as the difficulties that it presented.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top