>>15 Did you know that young children can regrow a fingertip that was cut off perfectly fine without any external processes (such as the powder/chemicals you mentioned) as long as you don't let the skin grow over the wound (I think I'm remembering that correctly; it's been a while since I read about it)? It has to do with how the body uses electricity via the nerves during healing.
I read a book called The Body Electric by Robert Becker (which is where I read about the fingertip regrowing I mentioned in the previous paragraph) a while ago (at least a couple years) that described a series of fascinating experiments up to the mid 1980s (I don't remember when they started) regarding regeneration, first trying to understand how the process worked in amphibians, which have amazing regenerative capability, and then trying to replicate it in mammals. Mammals have the ability to regenerate, but it's incredibly limited, which is why only young children can regrow fingertips, and can't regrow any more than that. They were actually able to cause rats with limbs cut off at the shoulder to regrow the limb all the way to the elbow joint using nothing but the rats' own healing potential by manipulating the electric current using the information they'd gained about how regeneration works.
It's incredibly fascinating, especially considering that it works by using the body's own healing potential. Unfortunately, the researcher who did all of this was forced out of practice and I don't think anybody else has tried to pick up where he left off. His research (in its early stages, I believe) is what led to a now commonly used method to heal non-unions in fractures (I don't remember if it was ultrasound or something else; like I said, it's been quite a while since I've read the book).
