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Stories by Katherine Harmon

Scientific American Logo
August 28, 2013

How Octopus Arms Regenerate With Ease

Like a starfish, an octopus can regrow lost arms. Unlike a starfish, a severed octopus arm does not regrow another octopus. But the biological secrets inside their arm regeneration feat do hold the promise of learning more about how we might better regenerate our own diseased or lost tissue.

Katherine Harmon

Scientific American Logo
July 26, 2013

Will the Robot Uprising Be Squishy?

Octopuses offer an extreme engineering challenge: They are almost infinitely flexible, entirely soft-bodied and incredibly intelligent. Are we vertebrate humans ever going to be able to build anything as deformable and complex as a real octopus?

Katherine Harmon

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