How long does the immortal jellyfish live?<\/strong><\/h2> Potentially forever. Which gets more impressive considering these creatures have been floating through the oceans long before the dinosaurs<\/a> went extinct (66 million years ago) \u2013 it\u2019s biologically possible for a single immortal jellyfish to have been alive for this entire time.<\/p> However, while this is technically feasible, it\u2019s by no means provable. That\u2019s because these jellyfish have only been studied sporadically since the early 1980s, meaning experts have only a few decades\u2019 worth of data.<\/p>
There\u2019s also another factor to consider. While an immortal jellyfish can age in reverse, it can also be easily killed by predators including various fish, sharks, turtles and even other jellyfish. This is why the immortal jellyfish is unlikely to overpopulate the Earth anytime soon.<\/p>
How does the immortal jellyfish live forever?<\/strong><\/h2> To understand how the immortal jellyfish is able to hack its lifecycle, you first have to dive into how a normal jellyfish ages. Don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s fairly simple. Albeit very very<\/em> strange.<\/p>\nThe jellyfish life cycle \u00c2\u00a9 Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure> Normally, a mere mortal jellyfish passes through five stages of life:<\/p>
\n- Fertilised egg:<\/strong> an adult jellyfish (known as a medusa) will spawn eggs and sperm into the water, with these two types of cells joining up to create a fertilised egg.<\/li>
- Planula:<\/strong> the fertilised egg grows into a small larva called a planula. It looks something like a microscopic worm and can swim about freely.<\/li>
- Polyp:<\/strong> The planula will swim down to find a solid surface (such as a seabed), where it will develop a digestive system and is able to feed itself. When conditions such as water temperature suit it, the polyp will reproduce asexually, cloning itself to create a small colony.<\/li>
- Ephyra:<\/strong> after forming a new set of muscles and nerves, a section of a polyp (either the original polyp or clone) becomes an ephyra, an organism that can swim independently, grow and feed.<\/li>
- Medusa:<\/strong> this is a fully-grown adult jellyfish, which can reproduce sexually with another jellyfish (usually dying shortly afterwards).<\/li>\n<\/ol>
However, if the grim reaper comes knocking, the immortal jellyfish turns this cycle on its head. If starved, injured or in waters too cold or hot, an adult Turritopsis dohrnii<\/em> drops to the ocean floor and transforms into a tiny blob of tissue (known as a cyst) and becomes a polyp once again.<\/p> It can effectively go back and forwards between the medusa and polyp stage in its lifecycle, almost the biological equivalent of Christopher Nolan\u2019s Tenet<\/em>.<\/p> Read more about ageing:<\/strong><\/p> \n- Cryonics: Could you live forever?<\/a><\/li>
- Do plants die of old age?<\/a><\/li>
- Feeling old? DNA mutations might be causing you to age quicker<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
How can this happen? Magic? Stem cells? Close. It\u2019s an ability powered by a process known as transdifferentiation.<\/p>
\u201cThis is basically when a fully formed specialised adult cell can become another type of specialised adult cell. It\u2019s how a cell can adapt,\u201d explains Dr Maria Pia Miglietta<\/a>, associate professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston and head of The Real Immortal Jellyfish research project.<\/p> \u201cIn the cyst, adult cells can become something that\u2019s needed for the polyp and then, crucially, integrate back into the organism. In just two to three days, the medusa can metamorphose back into a polyp.\u201d<\/p>
The exact mechanism behind transdifferentiation is still a mystery to scientists. However, as Miglietta explains, the answer will likely be found in the jellyfish\u2019s genes.<\/p>
\u201cIt most certainly has something to do with the DNA,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s the DNA that programmes a cell \u2013 certain genes being \u2018turned on\u2019 or \u2018off\u2019 will determine what sort of cell it is.<\/p>
\u201cAt the moment, we want to understand what kind of genes are turned on in the cyst. Because we think that those are the genes involved in regeneration and the ability of escaping death.\u201d<\/p>
Could humans become immortal like a jellyfish?<\/strong><\/h2> After reading about how jellyfish seem to have achieved eternal life, you\u2019re probably asking one major question: how can I get me some of that? Unfortunately, while the immortal jellyfish can go full Benjamin Button<\/em> at will, humans are a long way off mastering this level of transdifferentiation.<\/p> \u201cWe\u2019re far away from any kind of real-world application,\u201d says Miglietta.<\/p>
\u201cBut we hope that studying what happens in these jellyfish can tell us how their genes change cells \u2013 and how these changed cells integrate with others. This is the base of understanding cellular regeneration and tissue regeneration.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cA lot of why we age is still very mysterious. But by looking at this very simple animal with this very simple system, we can follow some genes and see how they behave.\u201d<\/p>
Read more about the science of ageing:<\/strong><\/p> \n- The race to stop ageing: 10 breakthroughs that will help us grow old healthily<\/a><\/li>
- Why does time speed up when you get older?<\/a><\/li>
- Epigenetic clock can predict the human brain\u2019s biological age<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Where do immortal jellyfish live?<\/strong><\/h2> Experts aren\u2019t exactly sure where immortal jellyfish originated from, but today they\u2019re mostly found in tropical regions all around the globe \u2013 and that\u2019s all thanks to humans.<\/p>
As Miglietta\u2019s research suggests, the creatures have been dispersed thro<\/a>ughout the world after getting caught ballast water<\/a> (the water some ships add in hull walls to steady the craft).<\/p> \u201cWe studied jellyfish in the Pacific, Panama, the Atlantic, Japan, Italy, Brazil and California. And, in the genes that I was looking at, they were all identical. If the jellyfish were spreading naturally, these genes would have accumulated differences in different locations. Identical genes, however, indicate a very recent human intervention.<\/p>
\u201cThen these jellyfish were found in ballast water, suggesting how they travel. It\u2019s an effect I call a \u2018silent invasion\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Absolutely](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2021\/05\/ballast-water-pouring-from-a-ship-4d629c2-1.jpg\" "\\"Ballast")
Ballast water pouring from a ship \u00c2\u00a9 Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure> Although it may be easy to get hold of one in tropical areas, we should warn you now: immortal jellyfish make crummy pets.<\/p>
True, leaving one without grub for a few days won\u2019t be as horrifying as that time your cousin forgot to feed their goldfish for a month (RIP). However, chuck it in a tank and this jellyfish is likely to spend more time metamorphosising (and reverse metamorphosising) than actually floating around.<\/p>
\u201cThey\u2019re incredibly sensitive, from the water temperature, to their plankton and fish egg diet,\u201d says Miglietta. \u201cThe real paradox is they\u2019re actually really hard to keep alive!\u201d<\/p>
\nAbout our expert Dr Maria Pia Miglietta<\/strong><\/h4> Dr Maria Pia Miglietta is an associate professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston and head of the Miglietta Lab, which focuses on evolution, genetics, and ecology of jellyfish. She is also head of The Real Immortal Jellyfish<\/a> research project and teaches summer courses on the biology of Cnidaria at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.<\/p> Read more about ageing:<\/strong><\/p> \n- Is age an illness?<\/a><\/li>
- Wild ideas in science: There\u2019s an off-switch for ageing<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div> <\/body><\/html>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Thomas Ling Published: Wednesday, 02 August 2023 at 13:47 PM The lifespan of a Greenland shark: up to 500 years. The giant barrel sponge: over 2,000 years. But the longest-living animal on planet Earth? The immortal jellyfish, a creature that can seemingly escape from death altogether. Despite only being only three millimetres in diameter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":31535,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"6"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",940,420,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal-300x134.jpg",300,134,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal-768x343.jpg",768,343,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",800,357,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",940,420,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",940,420,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Thomas Ling Published: Wednesday, 02 August 2023 at 13:47 PM The lifespan of a Greenland shark: up to 500 years. The giant barrel sponge: over 2,000 years. But the longest-living animal on planet Earth? The immortal jellyfish, a creature that can seemingly escape from death altogether. Despite only being only three millimetres in diameter…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/31534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
However, while this is technically feasible, it\u2019s by no means provable. That\u2019s because these jellyfish have only been studied sporadically since the early 1980s, meaning experts have only a few decades\u2019 worth of data.<\/p>
There\u2019s also another factor to consider. While an immortal jellyfish can age in reverse, it can also be easily killed by predators including various fish, sharks, turtles and even other jellyfish. This is why the immortal jellyfish is unlikely to overpopulate the Earth anytime soon.<\/p>
How does the immortal jellyfish live forever?<\/strong><\/h2> To understand how the immortal jellyfish is able to hack its lifecycle, you first have to dive into how a normal jellyfish ages. Don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s fairly simple. Albeit very very<\/em> strange.<\/p>\nThe jellyfish life cycle \u00c2\u00a9 Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure> Normally, a mere mortal jellyfish passes through five stages of life:<\/p>
\n- Fertilised egg:<\/strong> an adult jellyfish (known as a medusa) will spawn eggs and sperm into the water, with these two types of cells joining up to create a fertilised egg.<\/li>
- Planula:<\/strong> the fertilised egg grows into a small larva called a planula. It looks something like a microscopic worm and can swim about freely.<\/li>
- Polyp:<\/strong> The planula will swim down to find a solid surface (such as a seabed), where it will develop a digestive system and is able to feed itself. When conditions such as water temperature suit it, the polyp will reproduce asexually, cloning itself to create a small colony.<\/li>
- Ephyra:<\/strong> after forming a new set of muscles and nerves, a section of a polyp (either the original polyp or clone) becomes an ephyra, an organism that can swim independently, grow and feed.<\/li>
- Medusa:<\/strong> this is a fully-grown adult jellyfish, which can reproduce sexually with another jellyfish (usually dying shortly afterwards).<\/li>\n<\/ol>
However, if the grim reaper comes knocking, the immortal jellyfish turns this cycle on its head. If starved, injured or in waters too cold or hot, an adult Turritopsis dohrnii<\/em> drops to the ocean floor and transforms into a tiny blob of tissue (known as a cyst) and becomes a polyp once again.<\/p> It can effectively go back and forwards between the medusa and polyp stage in its lifecycle, almost the biological equivalent of Christopher Nolan\u2019s Tenet<\/em>.<\/p> Read more about ageing:<\/strong><\/p> \n- Cryonics: Could you live forever?<\/a><\/li>
- Do plants die of old age?<\/a><\/li>
- Feeling old? DNA mutations might be causing you to age quicker<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
How can this happen? Magic? Stem cells? Close. It\u2019s an ability powered by a process known as transdifferentiation.<\/p>
\u201cThis is basically when a fully formed specialised adult cell can become another type of specialised adult cell. It\u2019s how a cell can adapt,\u201d explains Dr Maria Pia Miglietta<\/a>, associate professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston and head of The Real Immortal Jellyfish research project.<\/p> \u201cIn the cyst, adult cells can become something that\u2019s needed for the polyp and then, crucially, integrate back into the organism. In just two to three days, the medusa can metamorphose back into a polyp.\u201d<\/p>
The exact mechanism behind transdifferentiation is still a mystery to scientists. However, as Miglietta explains, the answer will likely be found in the jellyfish\u2019s genes.<\/p>
\u201cIt most certainly has something to do with the DNA,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s the DNA that programmes a cell \u2013 certain genes being \u2018turned on\u2019 or \u2018off\u2019 will determine what sort of cell it is.<\/p>
\u201cAt the moment, we want to understand what kind of genes are turned on in the cyst. Because we think that those are the genes involved in regeneration and the ability of escaping death.\u201d<\/p>
Could humans become immortal like a jellyfish?<\/strong><\/h2> After reading about how jellyfish seem to have achieved eternal life, you\u2019re probably asking one major question: how can I get me some of that? Unfortunately, while the immortal jellyfish can go full Benjamin Button<\/em> at will, humans are a long way off mastering this level of transdifferentiation.<\/p> \u201cWe\u2019re far away from any kind of real-world application,\u201d says Miglietta.<\/p>
\u201cBut we hope that studying what happens in these jellyfish can tell us how their genes change cells \u2013 and how these changed cells integrate with others. This is the base of understanding cellular regeneration and tissue regeneration.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cA lot of why we age is still very mysterious. But by looking at this very simple animal with this very simple system, we can follow some genes and see how they behave.\u201d<\/p>
Read more about the science of ageing:<\/strong><\/p> \n- The race to stop ageing: 10 breakthroughs that will help us grow old healthily<\/a><\/li>
- Why does time speed up when you get older?<\/a><\/li>
- Epigenetic clock can predict the human brain\u2019s biological age<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Where do immortal jellyfish live?<\/strong><\/h2> Experts aren\u2019t exactly sure where immortal jellyfish originated from, but today they\u2019re mostly found in tropical regions all around the globe \u2013 and that\u2019s all thanks to humans.<\/p>
As Miglietta\u2019s research suggests, the creatures have been dispersed thro<\/a>ughout the world after getting caught ballast water<\/a> (the water some ships add in hull walls to steady the craft).<\/p> \u201cWe studied jellyfish in the Pacific, Panama, the Atlantic, Japan, Italy, Brazil and California. And, in the genes that I was looking at, they were all identical. If the jellyfish were spreading naturally, these genes would have accumulated differences in different locations. Identical genes, however, indicate a very recent human intervention.<\/p>
\u201cThen these jellyfish were found in ballast water, suggesting how they travel. It\u2019s an effect I call a \u2018silent invasion\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\nBallast water pouring from a ship \u00c2\u00a9 Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure> Although it may be easy to get hold of one in tropical areas, we should warn you now: immortal jellyfish make crummy pets.<\/p>
True, leaving one without grub for a few days won\u2019t be as horrifying as that time your cousin forgot to feed their goldfish for a month (RIP). However, chuck it in a tank and this jellyfish is likely to spend more time metamorphosising (and reverse metamorphosising) than actually floating around.<\/p>
\u201cThey\u2019re incredibly sensitive, from the water temperature, to their plankton and fish egg diet,\u201d says Miglietta. \u201cThe real paradox is they\u2019re actually really hard to keep alive!\u201d<\/p>
\nAbout our expert Dr Maria Pia Miglietta<\/strong><\/h4> Dr Maria Pia Miglietta is an associate professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston and head of the Miglietta Lab, which focuses on evolution, genetics, and ecology of jellyfish. She is also head of The Real Immortal Jellyfish<\/a> research project and teaches summer courses on the biology of Cnidaria at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.<\/p> Read more about ageing:<\/strong><\/p> \n- Is age an illness?<\/a><\/li>
- Wild ideas in science: There\u2019s an off-switch for ageing<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div> <\/body><\/html>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Thomas Ling Published: Wednesday, 02 August 2023 at 13:47 PM The lifespan of a Greenland shark: up to 500 years. The giant barrel sponge: over 2,000 years. But the longest-living animal on planet Earth? The immortal jellyfish, a creature that can seemingly escape from death altogether. Despite only being only three millimetres in diameter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":31535,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"6"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",940,420,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal-300x134.jpg",300,134,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal-768x343.jpg",768,343,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",800,357,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",940,420,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",940,420,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Thomas Ling Published: Wednesday, 02 August 2023 at 13:47 PM The lifespan of a Greenland shark: up to 500 years. The giant barrel sponge: over 2,000 years. But the longest-living animal on planet Earth? The immortal jellyfish, a creature that can seemingly escape from death altogether. Despite only being only three millimetres in diameter…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/31534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Normally, a mere mortal jellyfish passes through five stages of life:<\/p>
- \n
- Fertilised egg:<\/strong> an adult jellyfish (known as a medusa) will spawn eggs and sperm into the water, with these two types of cells joining up to create a fertilised egg.<\/li>
- Planula:<\/strong> the fertilised egg grows into a small larva called a planula. It looks something like a microscopic worm and can swim about freely.<\/li>
- Polyp:<\/strong> The planula will swim down to find a solid surface (such as a seabed), where it will develop a digestive system and is able to feed itself. When conditions such as water temperature suit it, the polyp will reproduce asexually, cloning itself to create a small colony.<\/li>
- Ephyra:<\/strong> after forming a new set of muscles and nerves, a section of a polyp (either the original polyp or clone) becomes an ephyra, an organism that can swim independently, grow and feed.<\/li>
- Medusa:<\/strong> this is a fully-grown adult jellyfish, which can reproduce sexually with another jellyfish (usually dying shortly afterwards).<\/li>\n<\/ol>
However, if the grim reaper comes knocking, the immortal jellyfish turns this cycle on its head. If starved, injured or in waters too cold or hot, an adult Turritopsis dohrnii<\/em> drops to the ocean floor and transforms into a tiny blob of tissue (known as a cyst) and becomes a polyp once again.<\/p>
It can effectively go back and forwards between the medusa and polyp stage in its lifecycle, almost the biological equivalent of Christopher Nolan\u2019s Tenet<\/em>.<\/p>
Read more about ageing:<\/strong><\/p>
- \n
- Cryonics: Could you live forever?<\/a><\/li>
- Do plants die of old age?<\/a><\/li>
- Feeling old? DNA mutations might be causing you to age quicker<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
How can this happen? Magic? Stem cells? Close. It\u2019s an ability powered by a process known as transdifferentiation.<\/p>
\u201cThis is basically when a fully formed specialised adult cell can become another type of specialised adult cell. It\u2019s how a cell can adapt,\u201d explains Dr Maria Pia Miglietta<\/a>, associate professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston and head of The Real Immortal Jellyfish research project.<\/p>
\u201cIn the cyst, adult cells can become something that\u2019s needed for the polyp and then, crucially, integrate back into the organism. In just two to three days, the medusa can metamorphose back into a polyp.\u201d<\/p>
The exact mechanism behind transdifferentiation is still a mystery to scientists. However, as Miglietta explains, the answer will likely be found in the jellyfish\u2019s genes.<\/p>
\u201cIt most certainly has something to do with the DNA,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s the DNA that programmes a cell \u2013 certain genes being \u2018turned on\u2019 or \u2018off\u2019 will determine what sort of cell it is.<\/p>
\u201cAt the moment, we want to understand what kind of genes are turned on in the cyst. Because we think that those are the genes involved in regeneration and the ability of escaping death.\u201d<\/p>
Could humans become immortal like a jellyfish?<\/strong><\/h2>
After reading about how jellyfish seem to have achieved eternal life, you\u2019re probably asking one major question: how can I get me some of that? Unfortunately, while the immortal jellyfish can go full Benjamin Button<\/em> at will, humans are a long way off mastering this level of transdifferentiation.<\/p>
\u201cWe\u2019re far away from any kind of real-world application,\u201d says Miglietta.<\/p>
\u201cBut we hope that studying what happens in these jellyfish can tell us how their genes change cells \u2013 and how these changed cells integrate with others. This is the base of understanding cellular regeneration and tissue regeneration.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cA lot of why we age is still very mysterious. But by looking at this very simple animal with this very simple system, we can follow some genes and see how they behave.\u201d<\/p>
Read more about the science of ageing:<\/strong><\/p>
- \n
- The race to stop ageing: 10 breakthroughs that will help us grow old healthily<\/a><\/li>
- Why does time speed up when you get older?<\/a><\/li>
- Epigenetic clock can predict the human brain\u2019s biological age<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Where do immortal jellyfish live?<\/strong><\/h2>
Experts aren\u2019t exactly sure where immortal jellyfish originated from, but today they\u2019re mostly found in tropical regions all around the globe \u2013 and that\u2019s all thanks to humans.<\/p>
As Miglietta\u2019s research suggests, the creatures have been dispersed thro<\/a>ughout the world after getting caught ballast water<\/a> (the water some ships add in hull walls to steady the craft).<\/p>
\u201cWe studied jellyfish in the Pacific, Panama, the Atlantic, Japan, Italy, Brazil and California. And, in the genes that I was looking at, they were all identical. If the jellyfish were spreading naturally, these genes would have accumulated differences in different locations. Identical genes, however, indicate a very recent human intervention.<\/p>
\u201cThen these jellyfish were found in ballast water, suggesting how they travel. It\u2019s an effect I call a \u2018silent invasion\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ballast water pouring from a ship \u00c2\u00a9 Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure> Although it may be easy to get hold of one in tropical areas, we should warn you now: immortal jellyfish make crummy pets.<\/p>
True, leaving one without grub for a few days won\u2019t be as horrifying as that time your cousin forgot to feed their goldfish for a month (RIP). However, chuck it in a tank and this jellyfish is likely to spend more time metamorphosising (and reverse metamorphosising) than actually floating around.<\/p>
\u201cThey\u2019re incredibly sensitive, from the water temperature, to their plankton and fish egg diet,\u201d says Miglietta. \u201cThe real paradox is they\u2019re actually really hard to keep alive!\u201d<\/p>
\nAbout our expert Dr Maria Pia Miglietta<\/strong><\/h4>
Dr Maria Pia Miglietta is an associate professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston and head of the Miglietta Lab, which focuses on evolution, genetics, and ecology of jellyfish. She is also head of The Real Immortal Jellyfish<\/a> research project and teaches summer courses on the biology of Cnidaria at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.<\/p>
Read more about ageing:<\/strong><\/p>
- \n
- Is age an illness?<\/a><\/li>
- Wild ideas in science: There\u2019s an off-switch for ageing<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div> <\/body><\/html>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Thomas Ling Published: Wednesday, 02 August 2023 at 13:47 PM The lifespan of a Greenland shark: up to 500 years. The giant barrel sponge: over 2,000 years. But the longest-living animal on planet Earth? The immortal jellyfish, a creature that can seemingly escape from death altogether. Despite only being only three millimetres in diameter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":31535,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"6"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",940,420,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal-300x134.jpg",300,134,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal-768x343.jpg",768,343,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",800,357,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",940,420,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-secrets-of-the-immortal-jellyfish-earths-longest-living-animal.jpg",940,420,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Thomas Ling Published: Wednesday, 02 August 2023 at 13:47 PM The lifespan of a Greenland shark: up to 500 years. The giant barrel sponge: over 2,000 years. But the longest-living animal on planet Earth? The immortal jellyfish, a creature that can seemingly escape from death altogether. Despite only being only three millimetres in diameter…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/31534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Wild ideas in science: There\u2019s an off-switch for ageing<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div> <\/body><\/html>\n
- Why does time speed up when you get older?<\/a><\/li>
- Do plants die of old age?<\/a><\/li>
- Planula:<\/strong> the fertilised egg grows into a small larva called a planula. It looks something like a microscopic worm and can swim about freely.<\/li>