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While we grew up with Spiderman, Superman, Batman and He-man we didn’t really know the X-Men until the first feature film came out in the year 2000. And like the rest of the world we were hooked. We are a country that believes in astrology, magic, possession, spirits and most of all we believe in God. So the possibility of super humans or rather humans with some special ability was extremely cool, but still brushed off as fantasy.

Well, what if that was not just a story, but a full blown reality? In the comic the X-Men (and a few women!), were born with extraordinary powers because they possessed the X-gene. This gene gave them abilities such as super fast healing,  telekinesis, weather control, super-human strength and different limb formations. We loved the comics, animations and feature films.

Out of the comics and flash into the reality! Genetic engineering has been a fast moving research area for a while now and this is where things get interesting. In 2006, researchers working with lab mice found that by avoiding the suppression of the Lin28a gene which is present in mice (as well as humans!) they were able to regrow parts of their body (somewhat like Curt Connors from Marvel’s Spiderman). This opened up the possibility of similar research into enabling humans to regenerate parts of their bodies using the gene Lin28a.

Apparently it has been 9 years and sources under the condition of anonymity say that there has actually been a breakthrough. There have been reports of secret ‘mass recruits’ of volunteers going on for a while although we wonder if they knew exactly what they were volunteering for. Were they already missing limbs when they went in or were they ‘helped’ with losing a limb? Either way it seems science is emulating fiction by trying to slowly and steadily remove human frailty. We guess it’ll all come out soon enough once one of these mutant humans are caught on film re-growing some part of their anatomy.

This leaves one open question. Can these new age mutants re-grow a head?

 

Lin28a Info Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/embj.201387363/pdf

Feature Image Source: http://cdn1.themovienetwork.com/sites/themovienetwork.com/files/xmen_1.jpg

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to the truth or to reality is purely coincidental, except for references to famous persons and/or public figures, in which case such stories are based on real people, but the story or stories, surrounding or about these people are almost entirely fictional. Readers are advised not to confuse the stories/contents published here as being genuine and true.