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Why is the liver so weirdly regenerative?

576 points · 293 comments · jbotz

  1. schnuri · · focus · HN ↗
    I am in awe about how wonderfully engineered by evolution the body is. E.g., what we are able to do with it and how it heals itself when we have an injury. Sure, many people would not live long without external intervention, but many others would. I still want to see the robot that can survive 80 active years without maintenance.
    1. dgunay · · focus · HN ↗
      Well, we do at least have to eat enough food and sleep ~1/3rd of our lives. That's kinda maintenance
      1. vconnor · · focus · HN ↗
        Compared to most animals that spend their entire day foraging for food, it's not too bad. Adapting to eating dense and very nutritious animal flesh is a great time-saver, and as we didn't evolve long fangs, we had to learn to use tools instead, and the rest is history. (mixing cause and effect here for dramatic purposes)
        1. nerdralph · · focus · HN ↗
          I think learning to cook food was likely a greater benefit. It's like we externally expanded our means of digestion.

          I watched a Ted talk where the speaker suggested our large brains with their high energy consumption would not have been possible were it not for cooking.

          1. NetMageSCW · · focus · HN ↗
            Which came first, steak or intelligence?
            1. jamiek88 · · focus · HN ↗
              Bone marrow came first. We were scavengers for the longest time. We invented tools to break the bones hyenas would leave. Skulking little scavengers.. until spears were invented then hoo boy - shit went exponential.
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