It’s official: the only thing certain in this world is taxes. That’s because death, for a tiny sea creature, is not inevitable. Turritopsis nutricul, a jellyfish-like hydrazoan, is the only animal known to be potentially immortal.
Once it reaches sexual maturity, Turritopsis looks like a tiny, transparent, many-tentacled parachute (only about 5mm in diameter) that floats freely in warm ocean waters. But when times get tough, Turritopsis can turn into a blob, anchor itself to a surface, and undergo a sort of reverse methamorphosis back to its youthful form as a stalk-like polyp. That’s like a butterfly turning back into a caterpillar. Scientists, who first described this phenomenon [pdf] in the 1990s, believe Turritopsis can repeat its life cycle indefinitely.
The trick to Turritopsis‘ infinite do-overs is a process called transdifferentiation, which turns one type of cell into another. While other animals can undergo limited transdifferentiation to regenerate organs (salamandars can regrow limbs, for example), Turritopsi is the only one that can regenerate its entire body.
Not surprisingly, the immortal Turritopsi are spreading. Native to the Caribbean oceans, Turritopsi have now been identified in waters near Spain, Italy, Japan, and the Atlantic side of Panama. Even though specimens from different locations have different numbers of tentacles (from 8 to 24), genetic tests confirm that they are of the same species. Researchers believe the creatures are criss-crossing the oceans by hitchhiking in the ballast tanks of large ships.
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Image: Maria Pia Miglietta
January 29th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
At least there doesn’t seem to be any danger of them damaging their new ecosystems.
January 29th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Does anyone know what they eat? Think I’d like some of that myself . . . . . .
January 29th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Hmmm… has Nature developed its own “grey goo”? Are the oceans going to end up full of these babies because we’ve perturbed the ecosystem too much? Scary immortal jellyfish… ARRGHH!
January 31st, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Sounds like the equivalent of stem cells turning back into stem cells.
Also seems like there ought to be a tremendous opportunity lurking here, too.
Not to make money. Rather to recover and remake sustainable life on the planet, undoing human damage. Eh what?
January 31st, 2009 at 10:50 pm
[...] llama Turritopsis Nutricula y no, no tiene por qué morir. Todo gracias a la transdiferenciación. ¿Hay ya un género del [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
awesum
May 31st, 2009 at 4:58 am
What about the DNA, that is probably accumulating damages and mutation after each differentiation and eventually the organism should die/not able to revert back after certain number of rejuvenation. Nothing is immortal..its only a matter of time..you can just last longer..rejuvenate a finite number of times
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:00 am
[...] Content: Discoblog: The Curious Case of the Immortal Jellyfish Discoblog: Remote-Controlled Flying Jellyfish! Discoblog: Celebrities Sell Cars, Beer, [...]
August 12th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
HeLa. also immortal, kicker? it’s a species that came from humans…one human in particular at that.
August 14th, 2009 at 4:55 am
I, for one, welcome our new immortal jellyfish overlords
August 25th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I’m no science major, but it it is my understanding that hydozoans (jellyfish and the like) aren’t true animals but more like a colony, with cells specializing for the greater good of the whole. How that’s different from how the cells in our bodies work I don’t know, but I’d think that changing forms would be more like reorganizing a work party than actual “shape-shifting” to an earlier body type.
As far as what these things eat, if they are like other jellyfish that’d be plankton and tiny shrimp and fish.
No, the oceans will not eventually be full of “grey goo” immortal jellyfish. They are too good a meal (in large quantities) for other animals up the food chain.
August 25th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
This is interesting. Maybe scientists can soon analyze its DNA and find something out of it which can make human organ cell transdifferentiate to renew itself.
August 25th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Do these jellyfish have stinging tenticals like the normal kind of jellyfish. If they do this could become a very big or small problem.
August 25th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Simple fix:
Just tell the Chinese it’s an aphrodisiac or some cure-all. Problem solved.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:40 am
I’ve tried Marinated Jellyfish for the first time ever just a couple days ago, And it was quiet delicious actually, Yummy yummy, endless supply of food ^_^
August 27th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
It’s still has to regenerate cells which means it has to copy DNA which means there will be errors/mutations which means eventually it will die. After a while it will get something like cancer that it can’t heal or maybe enough random mutation will occur that will simply make it impossible to regenerate. It may take hundreds if not thousands of years, depending on it’s metabolism, but they will not be completely immune to the death that time will bring.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Interesting stuff. But reading these comments, seriously guys how many jellyfish (or indeed any creature in the wild) usually dies of old age rather than predation or disease? They’re not going to take over the world.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
There are lots of animals, particularly cnidarians and other simple groups like nematodes, which are theoretically immortal, so this is far from the first case. All that means though is that the animals don’t accumulate cellular and genetic damage over time so their cells and DNA don’t wear out like ours do. They grow older without aging. The mechanisms they use to do that are a big topic of research since higher animals have trouble pulling off such tricks.
However, these animals are far from immortal in practice. They just don’t die of old age. Most of them have high rates of turnover due to disease and predation. For example one coral I’ve worked with was theoretically immortal, but very few lived to be 30 yrs old and almost none lived beyond 35.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
salamanders not salamandars.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:21 am
SOME CRAZY SHIT HERE MAN,,,,,,
August 28th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
[...] Article Here Share and Enjoy: [...]
August 28th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
[...] Read more Posted on August 28, 2009 at 3:51 pm by Terry · Permalink In: Uncategorized [...]
August 28th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
would be cool if people started cloning these and using them as a food source/super antibiotics.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Is it really immortal? Because after many cycles all the cells in the organism are replaced with new ones. This is a process of uninterrupted cloning, basically, not immortality. the original organism dies and is gradually replaced unperceived by a clone.
This is nature equivalent to theseus ship:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
August 28th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
No worries! These jellyfish are Godless
Liburuls! We will hunt them down
and destroy them to make Earth the
way God (and ME!) intended!
You betcha!
August 29th, 2009 at 2:35 am
If this were true they would have already filled the oceans by now after probably only a couple of hundred thousand years. They die.
August 29th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Larry of course they die. but by other causes potentially. being eaten, poisoned, otherwise killed. but a species that adapted to death isnt at all unbelievable. if plants can make what are apparently conscious decisions to release chemical cocktails to attract specific insects for specific reasons, why wouldnt an animal be adapted to basically tell his cells to start over? the only reason animals get old and wither away is because they are designed to. we constantly make new and recycle old cells within our bodies. why does that slow over time? its in the programming man. its not a “law” of nature.
August 30th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
@ biotele:
You can apply the same principle of Theseus’ Ship to the human body. Most of the cells in your body are less than ten years old, but since you seem to have a decent comprehension of Greek Philosophical puzzles, I’m assuming that you’re not a fourth grader. This is just an organism that is able to continue the process of remaking itself indefinitely, or at least until its genes are damaged severely, or something happens to kill it. Humans and more complex lifeforms aren’t able to do this because there is so much in us that can break down. A jellyfish doesn’t even have real organs.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:38 am
Death is an evolved trait. In order for genetic material to be adaptable to a changing environment, recombination must occur, usually through reproduction. In an environment with limited resources, reproduction without death would lead, inevitably, to starvation. It’s akin to phasing out an old product in favor of a new one. Being immortal is not just impossible, in the practical sense and the sense of Theseus’ Ship, but it is undesirable.
August 31st, 2009 at 9:21 pm
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.
September 4th, 2009 at 5:09 am
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September 4th, 2009 at 11:36 am
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September 9th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
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September 12th, 2009 at 12:58 am
Always bearing in mind, of course, that “Immortal Jellyfish” would be a brilliant name for a rock band!
September 17th, 2009 at 2:49 am
That is a wicked little animal! even though it has no real existence because its not an intelligent creature. It must be purely ran on instinct.? But from one of the comments to where we could somehow develop a breakthrough in science to help with human death. if that were to happen the earth would definitely be overly populated and the earth would become something far worse than now or what we expect in the future. we should be worried that in 2010 the standard computer will be more complicated and smarter than the human brain!!!!
September 18th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
put jellyfish in tank, let them reproduce, use there motion for energy
October 3rd, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Shopped by God.
October 11th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
When we site cancer as a reasonable “natural” death for these jellyfish, we must not forget that their immortality is tied to transdifferentiation. which is to say, a defective or cancerous cell can be changed into a completely different type of cell when the jellyfish is faced with the adversity of dealing with it’s cancerous cells. For this reason, these animals would be particularly resistant to cancer giving them, what appears for now, limitless do-overs.
We need to keep our minds open to new possibilities when faced with bold new discoveries that challenge what we have believed to be true. We should be mindful to note that the concept of “old” and “young” are bound to the man-made construct of linear “time” placing one event irrevocably in front of the other. It is completely plausible that a creature exists that does not obey our rules.
I think this is a wonderful discovery that will need to be studied many decades before we implant them in the bloodstreams our super soldiers!
October 13th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Sloppy, you should pay more atttention to your nomenclature. HydrOzoan, SalamandEr.
Bart
October 15th, 2009 at 3:54 am
I want it for myself…I mean, turning back to a child, go to school, eat tons of chocolate and get gifts on Christmas…definitely science must copy that.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:35 am
thank god they are only potentially immortal and will still die because of lack of food and other shortages.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
I agree with a previous poster that rather than immortal these jellyfish are just self replicating or cloning. When they regress they actually die and regenerate into a new being.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I wonder what they taste like…
October 19th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
If this article is true, then this jellyfish is certainly not the only practically immortal animal.
Hydra’s (small freshwater creature) do not undergo senescence (aging) or if they do, it is at a much, much slower rate than any other creature on earth.
October 24th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I, for one, object to these jellyfish as they do not conform to my way of life. I also object to all the prime numbered posts.I have my reasons.
PS – My shoe size is 10. Viva M P. Graham – We miss you.
October 24th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Do they even mate? talks about sexual maturity but mentions nothing about mating… maybe they like 2 go to a rock concert!
October 26th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Aaaargh, jackflap beat me to it. By more than two months!!! Woe is me.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Why is everyone treating this like its h1n1? apparently the jellyfish have found a fountain of youth, so to speak. if humans could harness that talent we could live forever. this is what science has been looking for for years. i think its neat that they can do this. am i the only one?
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
These aren’t new, so it’s unlikely their numbers will conquer the Earth’s oceans, since they haven’t yet.
Damage to the DNA of their make-up cells will likely cause their demise, or being eaten by a whale shark or other plankton-feeding animal.
November 13th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
What about NanoBots… If we could harness this transdifferentiation for human DNA, then inject our bodies with NanoBots to zoom around our bodies and destroy any DNA that mutates, we could live even longer than forever… unless we get eaten by a whale or a shark. Jackflap is right… we better just embrace our new jellyfish overlords.
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:04 pm
I’m sooooooooooo confused.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Wow this is sort of like “The Tomorrow Code,” Adam, bc that book is about human error, but dang this is totally awesome.
BAG BRO 2, you do realize that mutations are what allow us to live? without differentiation we would die
November 25th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
I hope they’re edible
November 27th, 2009 at 8:57 am
the name “immortal” is misleading. the organism can still die (nervous system taken off,, predation, disease). so the name is sort of a contradiction. the animal does not stay as one life form for ever.
December 7th, 2009 at 9:30 am
After reading comments here I wonder why many of you are bothering to read a science site? Huh? Oh yeah, it’s Discover……
December 12th, 2009 at 11:48 am
The first pet that can become a family relic
(as long as they’re with two for the reproduction)
December 12th, 2009 at 11:51 am
by the way, does anyone know how LONG it takes for one of these to mature and then rejuvenate?
December 18th, 2009 at 11:32 am
how is it that all comments here are about eating them, killing them or keeping them as pets? that tells us a lot about the human animal.
January 18th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Don’t let the fans of twilight see this or they will believe in teenager vampires for sure
January 30th, 2010 at 8:44 am
[...] Jellyfish Saturday, January 30th, 2010 | JFI1, Science Science It’s official: the only thing certain in this world is [...]
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:13 am
Interesting stuff! Immortality finally found in nature! Why is that immortality surprises us like nothing else? This is like watching a beautiful sunset without trying to express how beautiful it is!
February 4th, 2010 at 6:45 am
Cooooool…
I wonder whether scientist can copy its DNA and combine with human’s body?
If this happen, who knows it would be a better or WORSE day?