Let\u2019s do an exercise: try and picture an animal that is smaller than your pinky fingernail. Now imagine that at first it has the form of a jellyfish but if you keep looking at it it loses its original shape and becomes a blob. Eventually, if you keep looking, that blob starts to grow back and becomes a jellyfish again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This crazy mechanism is the survival trick developed by the Turritopsis dohrnii. A tiny tiny creature also known as the \u201cimmortal jellyfish\u201d: a creature that can reverse its development instead of dying like every other animal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They can still die though! They can be eaten, infected, or destroyed, but their singular ability to repeatedly return from an adult medusa to a polyp<\/a> if left alone makes it one of biology\u2019s most remarkable examples of rejuvenation and a unique model for scientists studying aging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most species of jellyfish move through an alternating life cycle. Free-swimming adults called medusae begin the cycle releasing eggs and sperm. That results in larvae that settle on a given surface and eventually grow flower-like polyps that bud off a new generation of medusae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Turritopsis dohrnii is different because when it faces critical conditions it takes a different route. First the medusae lose their familiar bells and tentacles until it settles into a mass that looks like a cyst. Then it grows back and reorganizes into stolons (that look like stems) and polyps (that look like lumps) that together can produce new jellyfish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The whole caboodle is not just like the \u201chealing\u201d we are used to. Cells that had one job are reprogrammed into completely new functions in a process named transdifferentiation<\/a>. Sounds crazy but instead of regenerating specific cells the whole organism divides itself into a bunch of tinier parts. Each of those parts can then work together to rebuild and\/or regrow a missing limb or rework a structure that was not functioning properly!<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe jellyfish that turns adulthood backward<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Read More: Minnesota keeps finding released pet goldfish that can grow to 6 pounds, and one suburb now has a permit for the fish toxicant the state itself does not recommend<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n