Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi! I have a couple different questions. Let me supply you with some basic info on what my project is. My project is "Do Magnets Affect Planaria Regeneration?" (a very similar project to this one: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p018.shtml posted on your website). The only difference between my project and yours is that I didn't do different intensities of magnets. I have completely finished my project and turned it in. It won the school science fair and I am going to the next level. I need to fix some stuff and upgrade my knowledge. So, I have some questions...

1.I need some pointers on how to search up the importance of my project. I'm not exactly asking for you to cheat for me, I just need some pointers on how to search it up, and maybe some basic facts.

2.My current project title is "Do Magnets Affect Planaria Regeneration?". I am not sure if the word planaria is right on it. Would the judges not like that if it isn't right? I bought my planaria from Carolina Biological. I am confused as to what to call them at certain times. The downloadable file saying basic planarian care seemed to use planaria when talking about the species in whole, planarian when talking about one, and planarians when talking about more than one, but not exactly about the whole species. So, I am really confused about that, too.

Thanks in advance,
LeapingLynx.

I mostly need to know the real importance of magnets' affect on planaria growth/regeneration

Hi LeapingLynx,

As far as the importance of studying planaria regeneration, think about why as humans we might want to get a better understanding of how regeneration works. Humans have a certain ability to "regenerate," for example, when new skin grows on a wound, but we don't grow new limbs after an amputation. While studying planaria regeneration is obviously a long way to getting human limbs to grow back after an injury, we have to start somewhere, and we can definitely learn things that may be useful for humans sometime in the future. For example, one of the reasons planaria are able to regenerate so effectively is because of a specific type of stem cell that they have a lot of. Humans have stem cells too, and in the distant future, it may be possible to stimulate our stem cells to help us regenerate much like the planaria do. For further information on this, I suggest you do some google searches for things like, "goals of research on planaria regeneration" and read some of what comes up.

I hope this was helpful for you and provides some food for thought.
JMP

P.S. Your science fair title sounds fine to me.

Thank you so much! You were a big help! Thanks a million!
~LeapingLynx