Yesterday I had to chase out a large black colored lizard from my kitchen! My wife Seema had given me an ultimatum: either the lizard goes out or I don’t cook today.
I had to come out of my slumber.
The lizard tried to outsmart me: it quickly “jettisoned” a three inches long segment of its tail even as I wanted to catapult it across the door. I felt pity but had to continue. Soon it parted with another 7 mm wide wedge of what had remained of its tail.
The precision with which it had eliminated its tail was remarkable. It looked nearly like a scalpel cut, albeit this was a biological scalpel. But two such cuts! I had not seen before. Although it could be argued that a stroke of the broom I used to chase the creature may have helped it in shedding its tail nevertheless, as would be general experience, the impact of the stroke is relatively gentle and certainly it demonstrates biology's superiority over mechanics.
My younger daughter has a compressed thumb nail for two to three weeks now. The nail is regenerating slowly through the stem cells in the nail bed, but the original nail is still hinged and she asks everyday, when will “God Sir” replace it completely? I have no definite answer.
Plants too use abscisic acid to allow an old leaf to fall, but that takes time as well.
A lizard’s ability to regenerate its tail always fascinated me. I haven’t searched the status of research in this area yet, but it could have applied implications in neuronal regeneration! If only we could isolate the growth factor, most likely a neuropeptide, we could use it in patients with paraplegic, quadriplegia and even central nervous diseases where degeneration sets in. Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinsonism, glaucoma etc….
Some of the best innovations come from the imitation of nature!
MJ,
ReplyDeleteTHE difference betwen machnes and humans is humans can make their replica. machines cant. they need us to do that.
whatever we say and do, we can never catch up with mother nature!!!