Our bodies are rife with disappearing potential. We come from stem cells, which can give rise to all the diverse types of cells in the human body. They can produce neurons, muscle cells, skin cells and more. As their daughters become more and more specialised, they lose this ability and become stuck with a specific fate.

That’s the standard story – a one-way street of lost potential.

The story is wrong.

According to a provocative new study from Christine Chaffer at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, some specialised cells can spontaneously revert back to a stem-like state. The one-way street actually works two ways.

It’s a very surprising result. Until now, no one thought that these reversions were possible, and scientists have