While Daily Scan saw a number of Marios and Luigis from the video game this morning, there are probably a few Wolverines out there this Halloween. Those mini-Logans from the X-Men might want to take a look at a "paper" published earlier this year in the fantastically named Journal of Superhero Mutational Science. Charles Xavier, aka "Professor X", and his colleagues report that Wolverine's ability to heal stems from a protein called Howlett, which is similar to the amphibian amblox. SiRNA knockdown studies of those genes led to decreased replication and affects healing abilities, Professor X's team said.
Sigrid Alvarez and Emma Conway, graduate students at the University of British Columbia, wrote the spoof paper, which appeared in the school's Science Creative Quarterly, The Scientist notes.