A type of flatworms, called planarians, can regenerate whole organisms from pieces as small as one-279th of their body. 1 Depending on how these goofy-looking worms were cut, they could even come back ...

Scientists at the National Cancer Institute and partnering institutions have discovered that Schmidtea polychroa, a flatworm capable of regenerating lost tissue, develops this ability progressively ...

A team of scientists has mapped the regions surrounding stem cells in planarians—small flatworms that are famous for being able to regrow whole bodies from small fragments—and discovered something ...

Planarian flatworms are small, unassuming creatures with an astonishing talent. Cut one into pieces, and each fragment can regrow a complete animal. This seemingly magical ability comes from their ...

Stem cells in most organisms typically take cues from adjacent cells. But new research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research has found that stem cells in the freshwater planarian Schmidtea ...

Flatworms can rebuild themselves from just a small fragment, and now scientists know why. Their stem cells ignore nearby instructions and respond to long-distance signals from other tissues. This ...

An image of a planaria, a flatworm that can regenerate its entire body, under a fluorescent microscope. WVU research, led by biologist Chris Arnold, is looking at genes that lay the framework for ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Imagine waking in the morning with no brain, and no memory ...