[Insert Predictable Spam Message Here]

[elfs]

The American Urology Association's annual meeting closed last week while I was off gallivanting with the furries. And one announcement during the event caught my attention.

It has been known for a long time that the penis is one of the faster-healing organs of the body. It has to be-- after all, if it doesn't work, you don't get to reproduce. So it makes evolutionary sense that its repair mechanism works very well. This has also made the penis very easy to clone-- take a cross-section of cells and you can grow a new penis in the right growth medium.

The problem is, they don't feel anything. You can tissue-engineer a whole penis, but the nerves to make it work aren't there. But now, researchers at Children's Hospital of Boston (why "Childrens?") built collagen-and-hormone "scaffolds" connecting severed basal nerves to the penises of rats, and after three months the interconnecting nerves between the main body of the rat and the penis were completely healed.

Researchers expect that in the very near future complete penile replacements with a functioning nervous net will be available to patients who need them following birth defects or injuries.

I have seen the future, and it is full of "Do you want a bigger penis?" spam.

Comments

[kyriani.livejournal.com]

One interesting use I could think for this would be F to M sex changes... Actually being able to give someone a real functioning penis would be an incredible benefit to that surgery...

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Depends what the nerves are already doing, though I remember a piece a few years ago in New Scientist, about how anatomists had got the clitoris all wrong, so I suppose the circuits are there.

They'd just need training...

[kyriani.livejournal.com]

I read something within the last year (I really ought to figure out a way to keep track of all the articles I read and information I gather) that the nerves are basically the same for the clitoris and the penis, slightly different, but basically the same. So yeah, there's a real possibility...