Does This Creature Hold the Key to Immortality?
The secret to immortality might be held in a jellyfish.
In 1988, a young German marine-biology student named Christian Sommer spent the summer studying jellyfish when he discovered a type of the species of hydrozoans that might have an ability to live forever.
After catching the jellyfish during snorkeling trips off the coast of Italy, Sommer began to study their makeup and noticed that the species (known by scientists as Turritopsis dohrnii) wouldn't die.
According to the New York Times:
Plainly speaking, it refused to die. It appeared to age in reverse, growing younger and younger until it reached its earliest stage of development, at which point it began its life cycle anew.
In a ZME Science piece that highlighted the behavior of these "immortal jellyfish," the creature was coined as "the only animal that cheated death."
They’re able to return to polyp stage ... which allows them to bypass death. As far as scientists have been able to find out, this change renders the hydrozoa virtually immortal.
They're a truly incredible species, currently inhabiting every ocean in the world. They can do this because they adapt very well to their surroundings and seem to fight off new threats, too.
"As a result of this cellular flexibility, they have extended their domain from the Caribbean to temperate and tropical oceans and seas world-wide," says a Digital Journal article. "Their spread to other regions is further attributed to their ability to stowaway on commercial and leisure ships as they traverse the globe."
What has some scientists -- like Shin Kubota, profiled in the Times article -- excited is that learning more about the creature’s life cycle could unlock secrets to treating a host of genetic diseases like cancer.
Not to mention becoming immortal ourselves one day.
"Some cells of this jellyfish that were supposed to [die] … are able to switch off some genes and to switch on some other genes, reactivating genetic programs that were used in earlier stages of the life cycle," said biologist Stefano Piraino of the University of Salento in a 2009 interview. The rapid advancement of cancer could be slowed in humans if scientists could discover a way to shut off human cells in the same manner.
Advancing what's already known about the ability to cheat death is difficult because there are few scientists working to further the studies on these small creatures. Additionally, they're difficult to study in labs because of their makeup, so an advanced understanding for reversing aging is yet to be found.
However, if scientists can crack the code to this creature's immortality, it may change the laws of life altogether.
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