Claire Bennet (the cheerleader in Heroes) can jump out of a building, get run over by a car, be set on fire, then shot through the heart - and still manage to stand up, stretch her neck muscles and walk away unscathed! Her powers lie in the ability to regenerate.

She’s not the only one, though…salamanders have always wielded the superpower of regeneration. They can grow back limbs, tails, parts of their hearts and the retinas and lenses in their eyes. The planarian, a small flatworm, is another example. It can be cut into pieces as small as one-279th of the whole, and entire new worms will grow from the segments!

Since we have to wait patiently for a scratch to heal, scientists thought it wise to pay a little more attention to these creatures.

It appears that cells near the injury have the ability to lose their specialised properties and revert back to a primordial state in a process called de-differentiation. They then unite, form a mound, multiply rapidly and then re-differentiate and “Ta-daa” a new leg/heart/body is created.

By isolating these cells and studying their properties, scientists will be able to convert us all into extreme-sport, dare-devil fanatics…