Edited the entry on Wolverine regrowing from a drop of blood and removed this line:
"No mention seems to have been made of what happened to the other body, which was in the killer's hands just about the time Wolverine finished his 'new' regrowth."
Because the issue does more-or-less explain that, and it's a misconception that comes up a lot when people discuss Wolverine's healing factor but don't remember or didn't actually read the issue where that happened (Uncanny X-Men Annual 11). To make a long story short, a powerful alien forces the X-Men to enter a semi-msytical alien temple to steal "The Crystal of Ultimate Vision" for him. The X-Men have increasingly surreal encounters (at one point Psylocke tears off her skin and is metal underneath) and are killed or absorbed by the temple one-by-one as they make their way to the crystal's location, until finally Wolverine is the only one left and the alien that started the whole mess kills him but accidentally lets a drop of his blood fall on the crystal. The crystal regrows Wolverine (though it's likely his healing factor and determination to keep fighting are instrumental in the crystal doing this) and he reforms with knowledge he previously didn't posses and able to levitate and telekinetically pluck the alien's power source from his body. The issue ends with the X-Men waking up alive and well (with Wolverine still possessing his adamantium bones and no longer possessing the enhanced powers of the crysyal) back at the mansion and wondering if it really happened. The implications being that the crystal had returned everything to its previous state with the exception of the evil alien still being defeated.
Edited by LoserTakesAllWhy would allowing our stem-cells to re-specialize (like "Lizard-Men") be bad for us puny hu-mans?
Hide / Show RepliesThe problem is not specialization, but formation of correct shape. Our cells have instruction how to build the system from the ground up, but they does not have instructions how to repair major injuries, so once leg lost it cannot be rebuilt.
Indeed, even just a bone 'knowing' how to heal back into the right shape, this kind of healing power kind of has a nice body-instruction-manual.. and good thing too, or every fracture would immediately heal-wrong before you had a chance to put a cast on it.
Shouldn't all the skin cells discarded into dust on the floor revive into completely new complete organisms, thus making this a huge duplication mechanism? Recovering from a single cell doesn't look like a good idea to implement.