Starting Anew
Scientists turn to lowly creatures to unlock the secrets of regeneration
By Susan Gaidos
It could have been a scene from a sequel to Jurassic Park: Peering down at the tiny worms wriggling under the lens of her microscope, biologist Alexandra Bely witnessed a performance that hadn’t been played in nature in millions of years. The beastie was sprouting a second head.
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Actually, two-headed worms are common in Bely’s lab at the University of Maryland in College Park. But this specimen belongs to a species that had long ago lost the unusual regenerative ability.