Friday, April 8, 2011

Limb Regeneration - We Can Have It If Evolution Goes Backwards

P21 Knockout Mice - mice with a gene named p21 removed from their DNA - can have a leg cut off and it will regrow in a matter of months.


Gene p21 has 3 seeming evolutionary benefits. First, it causes you to heal sooner - you end up with a big scar instead of a limb, meaning a less vulnerable area for a smaller amount of time. Second, it causes you to heal more cheaply - regrowing limbs costs a lot in terms of food, right when you're probably pretty crappy at obtaining food. And third, regrowing anything is probably going to make you more susceptible to cancer.

So the first 2 are all about food. In our overfed environment, I wonder if some humans will just happen to devolve and end up with a damaged p21 that unlocks the limb regeneration already in our DNA. We already have many segments of the population that arguably have degraded genes - people who can't digest certain foods or are unusually susceptible to certain diseases. It's not that strange to think that this gene could also degrade. Who knows - maybe we already have humans with this degradation - they just haven't had any limbs cut off.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Mancakes

me: Man, I switched my pancake recipe over to whole wheat
So much more delicious
There is a bit of wheaty taste that I'm not in love with but I bet I can smooth that out with more tweaking
But the texture, soooooo gooooood

Bramlage: Hahahaha, I'm glad you enjoy
But yeah, its pretty common in recipes with wheat flour
To actually split it wheat and all purpose 50/50
You could give that a try?

me: Yeah I was gonna pussy out like that
But then I checked my pants
And found a set of BALLS