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Two species of sea slugs can pop off their heads and regrow their entire bodies from the noggin down, scientists in Japan recently discovered. This incredible feat of regeneration can be achieved in just a couple of weeks and is absolutely mind-blowing. Most cases of animal regeneration — replacing damaged or lost body parts with an identical replacement — occur when arms, legs or tails are lost to predators and must be regrown. But these sea slugs, which belong to a group called sacoglossans, can take it to the next level by regrowing an entirely new body from just their heads, which they seem to be able to detach from their original bodies on purpose. If that wasn't strange enough, the slugs' heads can survive autonomously for weeks thanks in part to their unusual ability to photosynthesize like plants, which they hijack from the algae they eat. And if that's still not enough in the bizarro realm, the original decapitated body can also go on living for days or even months … [Read more...] about This sea slug can chop off its head and grow an entire new body, twice

close Video COVID-19 pill shows promise in preliminary testing Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel tells ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ the medication ‘might be the future’ of coronavirus treatment. A new possible medication to treat coronavirus -positive patients could be enough to turn the pandemic on its head, Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel revealed Sunday on " Fox & Friends Weekend ." First-stage testing of the experimental COVID-19 pill called Molnupiravir, by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, showed promising signs of effectiveness in reducing the virus in patients. "It may be the holy grail on this because it was just studied in phase two trials and it literally stopped the virus in its tracks," he explained. "And there wasn't any virus found in the patients that were studied." FDA WARNS AGAINST USING HEAD LICE DRUG IVERMECTIN TO TREAT CORONAVIRUS The drug would function as an at-home, … [Read more...] about COVID-19 pill effective in preliminary testing may be ‘holy grail’ of pandemic, Dr. Marc Siegel says

Imagine biologist Sayaka Mitoh’s surprise the day she found that a sea slug in her lab was suddenly missing its body. Or its head, really—depends on your perspective. Either way, the sea slug was in two pieces, both of which seemed to be alive, in the sense that they were both still moving. Somehow, they kept on living for days, and then weeks, even though the head was minus a heart and digestive system. Among biologists, this kind of body-splitting maneuver is known as autotomy—lizards, for instance, shed their tails to escape predation. But what the sacoglossan sea slug does next puts it in a class of its own. “We were surprised to see the head moving just after autotomy,” says Mitoh. “We thought that it would die soon without a heart and other important organs, but we were surprised again to find that it regenerated the whole body.” That’s right: It pulled a Deadpool. Just a few hours after its self-decapitation, the head began dragging itself around to feed. After a day, the … [Read more...] about Hey, So These Sea Slugs Decapitate Themselves and Grow New Bodies

By David Shultz Mar. 8, 2021 , 11:10 AM It was “like a horror movie.” That’s how ecologist Sayaka Mitoh describes the scene at her lab at Nara Women’s University in Japan one day when she was studying sea slugs. One of the slimy aquatic critters had lost its body, and its head was crawling around the bottom of a tank. “We thought that it would die soon without a heart and other important organs,” she says. But it didn’t. Within days, the slug began to regenerate its entire body. By the end of the month, it was back to normal. The remarkable recovery, reported today in Current Biology , has been observed in simpler life forms such as hydra and flatworms—but it’s practically unheard of in complex animals like sea slugs. “It underscores the fact that still in the 21st century, we truly do not know what is possible in biology,” says Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, a molecular biologist at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. After her initial observation, Mitoh and her … [Read more...] about This sea slug cut off its own head—and lived to tell the tale

Stanford Law School has launched a “Youth Justice Lab,” which aims to address racism in public schools. The university claims that special education, advanced placement programs, and other “meritocratic” grading policies are “insidious” forms of “state-sponsored racial segregation.” “In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests and calls for police reform, the United States is in the midst of a national reckoning that is forcing us to confront systemic racism and the institutions that perpetuate anti-Black racism, white supremacy, and discrimination against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color,” reads the Youth Lab’s description on Stanford’s website. The Youth Lab’s website goes on to claim that “perhaps no institution has reproduced racial hierarchy in the U.S. more than our public education system,” adding that special education, advanced placement, and other “meritocratic” grading policies equate to “state-sponsored racial segregation.” “From state-sponsored racial … [Read more...] about Stanford U. Launches ‘Youth Justice Lab’ to Address Racism in Public Schools Like ‘Meritocratic’ Grading