Magic 'Pixie Dust' made from pig bladders helps 'regrow' limbs of wounded soldiers

Magic 'Pixie Dust' made from pig bladders helps 'regrow' limbs of wounded soldiers

A powder nick-named "Pixie Dust" is being used to save the limbs of war heroes who have been wounded in Afghanistan.

Surgeons have already used the dust to save several soldiers so badly mutilated that they were at risk of amputation.

Made from pig bladders it has the ability to help the human body grow new tissue to replace large areas of a leg or arm destroyed by blast damage.

...

Pig bladders contain a substance called extra cellular matrix, which is made up largely of collagen.

Scientists have already used powdered pig bladders help grow replacement human bladders.

But researchers working for the American military realised the substance might also help hundreds of wounded soldiers.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1270990/Pixie-Dust-pig-bladders-regrows-limbs-wounded-soldiers.html#ixzz0mt0Pt16u


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1270990/Pixie-Dust-pig-bladders-regrows-limbs-wounded-soldiers.html#ixzz0mt0Exdn0

I wonder what the first clue was that got them pointed at pig bladders to begin with . . . .

And of course if I were going to try to make brazillians of dollars I'd sandblast the skin off people's wrinkly faces and then pack their bloody oozing maws with pixie dust - VOILA! wrinkle-b-gone.

Probably doesn't do a damn thing for jowls but hey - I wonder if ALL the genetic messaging works, like right out to the hair follicles.

Just regrow the outer layer of the scalpt and VOILA! cranial-albedo-b-gone.

could be wrong, tho

whose bro-in-law works for the biotech firm that developed and produced it.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article3866743.ece
Experts discredit regenerative 'pixie dust'

An embarrassed BBC has backtracked on a "worldwide exclusive" featuring a man whose finger was "regrown" after being lost in an accident, following a backlash from scientists suggesting it was unlikely to be true.



And yes, I realize the story I linked to is from a couple of years ago. But the important thing to note is that the finger tip guy has a personal and perhaps monetary stake in the issue.

The link the Straight Story provided suggests the material helps regrow tissue, but as yet no one has regrown a limb with bone, muscle, ligaments, tendons, veins, arteries and nerves. That's what the study is for.

I'll be very happy if this works. But we can't call it a win yet.

And the cynic in me says that if you blow off some guys limbs and the army can grow them back, he's not going to get to go home because he is still whole and functional.

damn, I had the sandblaster primed and ready to go :P

in such a serious way - too many nitwits are prone to believe it.

And even farther off topic - am I the only one who thought of the Simpsons episode where Homer lists a bunch of pork products and doesn't believe they all come from pigs?

I did too :)

is that there tends to be very rapid advancements in certain fields, such as medicine, aviation and communications that have a beneficial impact on the civilian world after the war ends.

I guess I'll never get my pixie dust.

I should have been clearer, sometimes the benefits are almost immediate, sometimes it takes a couple of years.

The medical advances that are coming out of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are having an impact already.

In contrast, the aviation advances that took place in WWII took longer to have an impact on civilian life.

animal bites?

just like a kidney.

What about all the other wounded troops?

...The biggest hope for it is that it can be developed to eradicate almost all the risk behind organ transplants.

The reports I read said there was one human who was grown a bladder with this stuff and is having no problems. It also said a uterus was grown for a canine, transplanted and the dog successfully carried and delivered a litter afterward.