FINALLY AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION “WAR, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?”

Thanks to the hundreds of dismembered soldiers returning from war in Iraq without all of their arms or legs the American military agency DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has funded research to figure out how humans might one day regrow their limbs. DARPA has given two competing groups of scientists $7.6 million in grants with the promise of more research money if preliminary trials are successful. For a start, scientists are trying to isolate the genes and molecular signals which enable regenerative abilities in many amphibians. “There are actually more species on this globe that can replace lost structures during regeneration than there are animals who can’t,” said one scientist, who went out on a limb by guessing that the next big breakthrough could come next year or 20 years from now. (Wired)