Why can axolotls regrow their own limbs?
Most animals get one shot at their body parts. Break an arm? You heal, but you're stuck with what you've got. But deep in the lakes of Mexico lives a creature with a superpower that sounds like science fiction: the axolotl can grow back entire legs, complete with bones, muscles, nerves, and skin. Not scar tissue. Not a stump. A whole new leg, as good as the original.
Here's the wild part: when an axolotl loses a leg, the cells at the wound site don't panic and seal everything up fast like ours do. Instead, they form something called a blastema—a blob of cells that acts like a construction crew with the original blueprints. These cells can become anything the leg needs: bone cells, muscle cells, skin cells, nerve cells. They remember the plan.
