The immortal jellyfish can beat ageing and death. Its genetics could help human cells rejuvenate - BBC
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)The immortal jellyfish is capable of winding back its lifecycle to become young again. Scientists are unlocking its cellular secrets for new strategies to treat diseases of old age. The tiny translucent jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii is surprisingly hard to kill. The marine biologist Maria Miglietta of Texas A&M University at Galveston has cut them, boiled them, starved them, overloaded their tanks with salt or plopped them in fresh water – but the nifty creatures seem to cheat death every time. Under duress, they stop in their tracks and fall to the bottom of their tank. Then something astonishing happens: the animals transform into balls of cells that bear no resemblance to the tentacled umbrella shape of adult jellyfish, known as the medusa. Within one to three days, a structure called a polyp – an early jellyfish life stage – buds off from this ball of cells and then grows into a colony, which will eventually sprout new medusae. "From one jellyfish that doesn't die, then you get this colony that can form hundreds more," Miglietta says.
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