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Topic: The world's only immortal animal (Read 1065 times) |
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Bohandez
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The world's only immortal animal
« on: 2010-03-20 07:27:34 » |
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From:
http://green.yahoo.com/blog/guest_bloggers/26/the-world-s-only-immortal-animal.html
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The turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish may be the only animal in the world to have truly discovered the fountain of youth.
Since it is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again, there may be no natural limit to its life span. Scientists say the hydrozoan jellyfish is the only known animal that can repeatedly turn back the hands of time and revert to its polyp state (its first stage of life).
The key lies in a process called transdifferentiation, where one type of cell is transformed into another type of cell. Some animals can undergo limited transdifferentiation and regenerate organs, such as salamanders, which can regrow limbs. Turritopsi nutricula, on the other hand, can regenerate its entire body over and over again. Researchers are studying the jellyfish to discover how it is able to reverse its aging process.
Because they are able to bypass death, the number of individuals is spiking. They're now found in oceans around the globe rather than just in their native Caribbean waters. "We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion," says Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute.
Bryan Nelson is a regular contributor to Mother Nature Network, where a version of this post originally appeared.
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If I was biologist I would start immediately to study this animal with scrutiny! 
Edit:
Actually the information source is not good, here's a comment that explains why:
Although the subject is interesting the page, published on 16th March 2010, is poorly researched blog-spam. It is essentially just copied from one of the numerous pages that say the same thing, such as this one published on 27th January 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4357829/Immortal-jellyfish-swarming-across-the-world.html
The picture is not of Turritopsis nutricula, but T. rubra according to this page
http://www.ville-ge.ch/mhng/hydrozoa/hydrozoa-directory.htm
This is Maria's page
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mum31/
and the related journal article about ships' ballast is here
http://www.springerlink.com/content/81747575j2707j4g/
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MoEnzyme
Acolyte
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infidel lab animal
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Re:The world's only immortal animal
« Reply #1 on: 2010-03-20 18:12:08 » |
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Bohandez,
Interesting. Thanks for sharing. Wikipedia seems to reflect some accuracy to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula
Quote:| Theoretically, this cycle can repeat indefinitely, rendering it biologically immortal, although in nature, most Turritopsis, like other medusae, are likely to succumb to predation in the plankton stage, or disease, without ever reverting to the polyp form. |
[Mo] I'm not so sure that this means much in terms of human immortality. Being in the phyla protostomia, as animals go it is only distantly related to humans (of course we share a common distant ancestor but that's just about it). Developmentally we almost could not be more different, so I doubt genetic engineering of this trait for humans would be successful for us. And of course lacking much of a mental life the creature itself has no appreciation for its own potential immortality.
It might be interesting to make this trait possible in other semi-intelligent protostomes like octopi - a pure speculation on my part at this point but more likely than any direct application for humans and our closer kin. In any case having to revert to its earliest developmental stage would seem to make retaining mature neurological memories impossible - so one might reasonably question whether this kind of immortality is any more interesting than asexual cloning - with its known potential for genetic though not individual oganismic immortality. Functionally it would seem more like a genetic clone of its previous self than a truly immortal organism in its own right.
It's an interesting biological concept-toy for thinking about these larger immortality issues anyway, so once again thanks for sharing it.
-Mo
Quote from: Bohandez on 2010-03-20 07:27:34 From:
http://green.yahoo.com/blog/guest_bloggers/26/the-world-s-only-immortal-animal.html
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The turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish may be the only animal in the world to have truly discovered the fountain of youth.
Since it is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again, there may be no natural limit to its life span. Scientists say the hydrozoan jellyfish is the only known animal that can repeatedly turn back the hands of time and revert to its polyp state (its first stage of life).
The key lies in a process called transdifferentiation, where one type of cell is transformed into another type of cell. Some animals can undergo limited transdifferentiation and regenerate organs, such as salamanders, which can regrow limbs. Turritopsi nutricula, on the other hand, can regenerate its entire body over and over again. Researchers are studying the jellyfish to discover how it is able to reverse its aging process.
Because they are able to bypass death, the number of individuals is spiking. They're now found in oceans around the globe rather than just in their native Caribbean waters. "We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion," says Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute.
Bryan Nelson is a regular contributor to Mother Nature Network, where a version of this post originally appeared.
---
If I was biologist I would start immediately to study this animal with scrutiny!
Edit:
Actually the information source is not good, here's a comment that explains why:
Although the subject is interesting the page, published on 16th March 2010, is poorly researched blog-spam. It is essentially just copied from one of the numerous pages that say the same thing, such as this one published on 27th January 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4357829/Immortal-jellyfish-swarming-across-the-world.html
The picture is not of Turritopsis nutricula, but T. rubra according to this page
http://www.ville-ge.ch/mhng/hydrozoa/hydrozoa-directory.htm
This is Maria's page
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mum31/
and the related journal article about ships' ballast is here
http://www.springerlink.com/content/81747575j2707j4g/
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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