Horror of Human Limb Regrowth

Nature has handed out some wildly uneven perks. While certain animals can regrow entire limbs, humans are limited to patch jobs. Julian and Trace dig into what it would actually take to rebuild an arm or leg from scratch, from the cellular machinery needed to kick-start regeneration to the staggering calorie bill your body would have to pay along the way. Building a replacement limb would mean your body would have to manufacture bones, muscles, nerves, blood vessels, and skin on an industrial scale—all while somehow keeping the rest of you running at the same time.

QUESTION

Julian: "What would be the physical toll on the human body if we could regenerate missing limbs? What would the calorie and nutrition cost be to regrow an arm or a leg, and what would it take to stimulate that response in a complex vertebrate?" from Daniel

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CREDITS

This episode of That's Absurd Please Elaborate was written by Trace Dominguez and Julian Huguet, edited by Kyle Sisk, and produced by all three of us with the support of our Patrons.

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