Dear Science,

 

 

Please hurry up and replicate this phenomenon for use in humans!

 

 

Or, wait, it would probably be nightmarish beyond words if we were all immortal? What would we all eat, where would we all live?…

 

 

 

The Curious Case of the Immortal Jellyfish (Discover magazine)

 

 

 

“It’s official: the only thing certain in this world is taxes. That’s because death, for a tiny sea creature, is not inevitable.Turritopsis nutricul, a jellyfish-like hydrazoan, is the only animal known to be potentially immortal.

 

 

Once it reaches sexual maturity, Turritopsis looks like a tiny, transparent, many-tentacled parachute (only about 5mm in diameter) that floats freely in warm ocean waters. But when times get tough, Turritopsis can turn into a blob, anchor itself to a surface, and undergo a sort of reverse methamorphosisback to its youthful form as a stalk-like polyp. That’s like a butterfly turning back into a caterpillar. Scientists, who firstdescribed this phenomenon [pdf] in the 1990s, believeTurritopsis can repeat its life cycle indefinitely.”

 

 

 

For the complete article, click here.

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