http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1128732/Invasion-immortal-jellyfish-lives-ever.html I could just imagine hitting puberty every time after you have sex. So do you think there is a good secret locked in this little buggers DNA code?
The article did state that the organism can reproduce asexually at the polyp stage, but my understanding is that this is not the basis of its “immortality”. Rather, it’s the ability of the jellyfish cells to “transdifferentiate” (although I think a better term is “dedifferentiate”). This is an amazing property that is very rare in animal cells, although common in plant cells. There is a lot of scientific research on the mechanisms of aging. Findings like this jellyfish are interesting, but there is a big difference between the genetics of aging in ‘simple’ organisms versus ‘complex’ organisms. In Drosophila and C.elegans (two of the workhorse model organisms in genetics and developmental biology), it is easy to alter lifespan. Alteration of single genes can dramatically change lifespan in one direction or the other. However, when the same alterations are made in mice there is little or no effect. This reflects the considerably more complex genetic and epigenetic factors controlling aging in mammals. However, the ability to stimulate our own cells to dedifferentiate holds tremendous potential in the areas of regenerative therapies. This is evidenced by the recent IPS breakthrough. This is where scientists have managed to coax human adult differentiated cells (eg. a skin cell) to dedifferentiate into embryonic stem cell-like cells. It is hoped that these Induced Pluripotent Stem (IPS) cells will be a readily available patient-matched alternative to using embryonic stem cells in cellular therapies for degenerative diseases. Applying dedifferentiation to increasing human lifespan or reducing the effects of aging is a considerably more speculative and long-term goal!
Yep. Normally the polyp will bud off medusa's asexually. Medusas then mate and the offspring settles and grows out to be a polyp.. cycle starts again. But these medusas are able to revert back to polyp stage after they have mated. It's not real immortality as far as I'm concerned.
But I can't do that!! if you can assume it dies, why can't you assume it keeps on living. If you don't know, its Schrödinger's jellyfish
Lets just say it's an educated guess Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It's rather improbable that the polyp survives. It produces medusae, so it seems rather nonsensical (evolutionary) for the polyp to re-revert back to a medusa also. Also, it doesn't have any means of feeding itself after the medusae have all budded off.
