残疾？我选择再生！
Nature has a lot to teach us.
大自然可以教会我们很多东西。
As part of our special package, we explored how animals, plants, and bacteria use different resilience strategies when faced with scarce resources, predators, and other challenges.
作为特别板块的一部分，我们将探寻动物，植物和细菌如何运用不同的适应策略来面对资源短缺，捕食者和其他挑战。
Resilience by regeneration
Humans should envy the axolotl (pictured, above).
人类应该会嫉妒蝾螈（上图所示）。
Our powers of regeneration are limited: Broken bones knit, wounds heal, and large parts of the liver can regenerate, but that's about it.
我们的再生能力非常有限：碎掉的骨头长好，伤口愈合， 大部分的肝脏可以再生，但也就仅限于此。
But the axolotl—a large salamander also called the Mexican walking fish because it looks like a 20-centimeter eel with stumpy legs—can replace an entire missing limb or even its tail, which means regrowing the spinal cord, backbone, and muscles.
但是蝾螈— 一种大的蜥蜴，也被称为墨西哥鲇鱼因为它看起来像一条20厘米长的有着粗短的腿的鳝鱼—它可以替换掉整个肢体或者甚至是尾巴，这意味着重新生长出脊髓，脊椎骨和肌肉。
About 30 research teams are probing how these salamanders do it.
约有30支研究团队都在探索这些蜥蜴是如何做到的。
In the axolotl, they've found, various tissues work together to detect limb loss and coordinate regrowth.
在蝾螈中，他们已经发现，有多种组织协同作用来检测断肢体，并协同再生。
In the process, the animals reactivate the same genetic circuits that guided the formation of those structures during embryonic development, causing generalist stem cells to specialize.
在这个过程中，这种动物激活了一种遗传开关，这种开关与指导胚胎发育时结构的形成是相同的，可以让多能干细胞开始分化。
Axolotls are only one of several regenerators in the animal kingdom.
蝾螈只是动物界里再生高手中的一种。
Flatworms called planarians are even more resilient—able to surge back after losing 90% of their bodies.
有一种叫做三肠涡虫的变形虫的恢复能力甚至更强—可以在丢失了90%的身体之后迅速再生。
One small fragment of those 2-centimeter-long aquatic worms can rejuvenate the brain, skin, gut, and all the other functional organs.
这种两厘米长的水生虫子，仅仅一小部分就可以再生出大脑，皮肤，内脏和所有其他的功能器官。
Again, stem cells are key, and a special set of genes active in muscles tells those stem cells what to do, activating growth and specialization genes in the right cells at the right time.
干细胞又一次成为了关键，肌肉中的特定激活的基因会指导干细胞该做什么，激活生长和让特定细胞中的特定基因在合适的时间表达出来。
So the planarian can rebuild itself almost from scratch, whereas the axolotl can rebuild only if the main body axis is intact.
因此这种扁形虫可以从一点点重建出自己，而蝾螈只能在身体主轴完整的情况下再生。
This year, researchers took another step toward detailing the molecules underlying regeneration by sequencing the genomes of those two species.
今年，弄清再生背后的分子机理的研究又再进了一步，科学家们对这两个物种进行了基因测序。
The ultimate hope: One day, we'll be able to coax injured humans to execute the same repairs.
最终的目标：希望有一天，我们可以诱导受伤的人类进行同样的修复。
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