> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353636,00.html
>
> 'Pixie Dust' From Pig's Bladder Regrows Man's Finger
> Thursday, May 01, 2008
>  AP
>
> Stephen Badylak, a senior research scientist at Purdue University, holds a piece of material harvested from a pig's bladder.
> With the help of an experimental powder, a man’s severed finger has regrown to its original length in just four weeks, reports
> London’s Daily Mail.
>
> Lee Spievack, of Cincinnati, who sliced almost half an inch off the top of one of his fingers, described the powder as “pixie dust,”
> according to the newspaper.
>
> The “pixie dust” is actually extra-cellular matrix, bursting with collagen and is made from a dried pig’s bladder, the newspaper
> reports.
>
> The dust was designed to regenerate damaged ligaments in horses, the Daily Mail said.
>
> Collagen is known to give skin strength and elasticity. It is thought that the dust kick-starts the body's natural healing process
> by sending out signals that mobilize the body's own cells into repairing the damaged tissue, according to the newspaper.
>
> Spievack said his finger even has a fingernail and fingerprint.
>
> “The second time I put it (the dust) on, I could already see the growth,” Spievack said. “Each day it was up further. Finally, it
> closed up and was a finger. It took about four weeks before it was sealed.”
>
> Spievack injured his finger three years ago when it got caught in the propeller of a model plane. He did not want a skin graft,
> opting instead to try the “pixie dust.”
>
> “There are all sorts of signals in the body,” said Dr. Stephen Badylak of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the
> University of Pittsburgh. “We have signals that are good for forming scar tissue and others that are good for regenerating tissues.
>
> "One way to think about these matrices is that we've taken out many of the stimuli for scar tissue formation and left those signals
> which were always there for constructive remodeling."
>
> Essentially, the powder directs tissues to grow fresh instead of forming a scar.
>
> Spievak has not lost any bone, nerves or tendon material.
>
> --
> Frederick Martin McNeill
> Poway, California, United States of America
> mmcne...@fuzzysys.com
> w00t *********************************
> "Calling an illegal alien an 'undocumented immigrant' is
> like calling a drug dealer an 'unlicensed pharmacist'."
> ******************************************