Inhaling CO2 may rescue nerves’ ability to regrow

 

Image courtesy of Marcial Quiroga-Carmona

Joel Kontinen

Breathing out after birth switches off the ability of tissues to regenerate, a study in mice suggests. But the pathway seems to be reversible.

Taking our first breaths marks the beginning of a new life, yet this may be the very act that limits our ability to grow and heal as adults. Studies in mice have pinned down newborns’ exhalation of carbon dioxide, immediately after birth, as the starting gun that switches off their cells’ intrinsic ability to regenerate.

“We were very surprised and excited by the CO2 effect,” says Zhigang He at Harvard Medical School, who led the research.

Does inhaling a lot of CO2 make limb grow? This is what some researchers say. The study was done on mice, so that it might not apply to humans at all.  

Source:

Jo Marchant 2026 Inhaling CO2 may rescue nerves’ ability to regrow | New Scientist 29 October 

Mice seen giving 'first aid' to unconscious companions

 

Image courtesy of Wenjian Sun et al. 2025-02-22

Joel Kontinen

Can mice have mercy to their hurt companions?

This proves that some animals are more conscious of their companions than we usually think. This is not due to evolution but on intelligent design as God also made the animals.

“When they find another mouse unconscious, some mice seemingly try to revive their companion by pawing at them, biting and even pulling their tongue aside to clear their airways. The finding hints that caregiving behaviour might be more common in the animal kingdom than we thought.

There are rare reports of large, social mammals trying to help incapacitated members of their species, such as wild chimpanzees touching and licking wounded peers, dolphins attempting to push a distressed pod mate to the surface so it can breathe and elephants rendering assistance to ailing relatives.

Now, Li Zhang at the University of Southern California (USC) and his colleagues have filmed what happened when they presented laboratory mice with a familiar cage mate that was either active or anaesthetised and unresponsive.”

Source:

 Chris Simms Mice seen giving 'first aid' to unconscious companions | New Scientist 20 February 2025