The story begins with an Aztec god of death and lightning,
the Xolotl.
As legends have it, he was a monstrous dog that guarded the Sun God and
ushered souls into the underworld every night.
One day, as the gods began sacrificing each other
for the newly created Sun.
Xolotl, master transformer, managed to escape death
by turning himself into a salamander.
And that creature became known as the Axolotl.
In ancient Aztec tongue the name "Axolotl" translates to
"water monster."
And just as the name suggests these creatures live their
entire lives underwater using these adorable feather gills to breathe.
After being driven to near extinction from their only natural habitats in Central Mexico,
these creatures are now found in more labs than anywhere else.
This is because the Axolotl is one of nature's scrappiest creatures with a unique
ability that has baffled the scientific community for decades.
"They are pretty amazing actually. So, I mean obviously, they're famous for their ability to"
"regenerate extreme structures like limbs and we all know that it's the only"
"terrestrial animal that can regrow a limb."
This is Dr. James Godwin,
he studies Axolotls for their unique regenerative abilities.
"So, if you amputate at the level of the wrist, you regenerate the hand."
"If you imitated the upper arm, you can regenerate a full up."
But the Axolotl special ability doesn't stop there.
"There's a whole laundry list of structures that they can regenerate."
"They can regenerate the front portion of their brain, called the telencephalon."
"You can crush their spinal cord or sever the spinal cord in about three weeks,"
"all of the spinal cord machinery will reconnect and the tail of the legs will work again."
"They can regenerate impressively the testes."
"Most importantly, they can regenerate like 1/3 of the heart ventricles"
"so if you amputate or injure 1/3 of the heart, it'll regrow that in the course of about"
"30 days to 60 days."
"Comparative to human we're a tiny, little blockage in a heart vessel"
will lead to extreme damage and eventually death,
these guys are pretty amazing."
Axolotls are able to achieve this sort of regeneration because they react to
injuries in an entirely different way than humans.
When we're injured, a wound from a severed limb simply
gets covered with skin tissue.
"We don't do it as adults"
"really, we we scar, we seal up the wound."
"We don't really replace damaged tissue."
But not Axolotls. They transform nearby cells,
into stem cells, forming bone, skin, and veins in their exact original state.
Scientists are still unable to explain why we react to injuries so differently.
"When humans or mice get injured, certain parts of the immune system participate"
"different way that may lead to a scarring outcome, or it may"
"block ability to activate or awaken that regeneration process."
"The other thing is that there may be some"
"intrinsic difference, in the salamander cell."
"Right?"
"The salamanders may have cells that are poised, ready to take place"
"in a reaction of regeneration and that human cells could be somewhat locked down in their potential."
Recently, researchers gained access to the full genome sequence of an Axolotl.
Allowing them to identify specific genes and proteins
that could hold the key to regeneration.
"Now that we have a sequence genome"
"and we have all the molecular tools."
"I think that is going to be a very exciting future."
"If we can learn from these regenerative organisms, and use"
"them as a template,"
"we might be able to sort of unlock the the natural way to regenerate."