The tail lizard then grows back: The ability to make this person jealous turns out to be a huge trade-off

Lizards can regrow their tails, even their limbs. But that ability is not infinite.

Lizard is an animal with many imperfect features in nature. In terms of predators, they are terribly fast, but also very easy to become prey to others because of their small, weak appearance.

To compensate, many lizards have evolved to possess impressive survival ability: tail-shedding to escape . This is an ability that makes humans extremely jealous, because lizards can regrow their tails, even their feet if they unfortunately lose, and regrow as many times as they can.

Even if they can regain the lost part, they must exchange it with their own lifespan.

However, according to a recent study, the lizard's "ability" is actually a trade-off.Even if they can regain the lost part, they must exchange it with their own lifespan.

Specifically, experts from the University of Tasmania (Australia) realized that when lizards regrow lost tissue, they also lost telomeres in it. These are the DNA rings at the end of the chromosome (chromosome), which play a role in protecting the genetic code. However, telomeres will gradually shrink over time, causing cells to lose function and become susceptible to disease. In other words, telomeres can be seen as signs of our life expectancy.

According to Luisa Fitzpatrick, a leading researcher, tail growth lizards show signs of loss of telomeres in the cell - specifically for the Niveoscincus ocellatus lizard . In fact, lizards are capable of extending telomere on chromosomes - ie, extending their lifespan . But when the tail is lost, this ability disappears, until the tail forms.

Fitzpatrick said that this result is not the same as her hypothesis and her work. They had previously assumed that the tail regrowth would make telomeres shorter, rather than think that lizards had a "maintenance" mechanism and expanded telomeres. "This is something that cannot be seen in animals and humans."

However, this is still a trade-off. When you want to grow tails, the lizard body stimulates metabolism and cell division, pushing telomeres into extremely stressful state, making their life really shortened.

According to Fitzpatrick, the results of this study can apply to other knowledge about human aging.