The Incredible Way This Jellyfish Goes Back in Time

Credits:
Narrator/Writer: Stephanie Sammann

Imagery courtesy of Getty Images

Additional Footage:
Sasuke Tsujita
Beni Jellyfish Regeneration Biology Experience Laboratory

Music:
Beyond by ANBR
Event Horizon by Charlie Ryan
When the Sunrise---instrumental-version by Yehezkel Raz
A Journeys Epilogue by Yehezkel Raz
Chachachill by Kola

References:

[realscience]

The Nebula and CuriosityStream deal is at an incredibly good price right now - $11.59 is an insanely good deal they are doing for Memorial Day! It won't be this cheap for very long so get in on it while the gettins good!

[onilregeats]

I love this channel so much, I started studying biology this semester and we just covered hydrozoa but in a way less interesring way. Its amazing how you can make the exact same topic that much more interesting

[RonakDhakan]

It took 100 years after its discovery to realize the powers of this jellyfish. It might take another 100 years to implement the beneficial aspects of this.

[klikkolee]

I think there's an overlooked aspect of the regression -- the polyp becomes multiple adults. This isn't one adult reverting to childhood and growing up again to refresh itself. This is an adult reproducing in a way that consumes itself.

In an organism, over any given period of time, each cell has a chance of malfunctioning. Over time, these malfunctions accumulate until they threaten the life of the overall organism. In reproduction, a small number of cells are used to start a new organism. Fewer cells, fewer chances for malfunctions, lower chance of enough malfunctions accumulating to prevent the offspring from reaching maturity. If you sample enough conceptions that the number of starting cells is equal in number to the cells of an adult, you will be able to witness the chance malfunctions in the form of birth defects and nonviable larvae/fetuses/etc. But plenty of offspring did not experience those malfunctions, allowing the species to continue.

In this regression-based reproduction, there may be a far greater number of old cells which will contribute to each new organism, meaning more defunct cells to start with and thus a reduced viability of each offspring. I'm interested to see if research has been done regarding that.

[Pyriphlegeton]

6:21 Senescence is not cell death. On the contrary. It is living cells deteriorating in function and ceasing of cell division.
They're rather accurately called "zombie cells" because they are indeed still active, just dysfunctional. They're still however releasing proinflammatory mediator chemicals, etc. (The so-called SASP, senescence-associated secretory phenotype).

[williamwalsh]

"The slight inconvenience of death."
Great line. I'm really enjoying your content. In depth, very well written, great narrative voice.

[SE]

The alien creatures we share this planet with never ceases to blow my mind!

[Zamu]

God I love real science
You guys have actually taught me a lot

[ChaossX]

It's hard to believe jellyfish and octopuses are from this planet. Evolution in the ocean seems to be so much more advanced than it is on land.

[JM-ftjs]

"You see that baby over there? That's my dad"

[jeffjeff]

It doesn't just roll back into a 'baby', it essentially turns back into a fetus. It's hard to consider this "immortality", it's arguably the same organism but once the babies spawn from the polyp it's certainly not the same individual. In a human, a process that could take us back that far would wipe clean all of the memories and scars that define a person's identity. You, as an individual human person, would slowly die as your brain shrunk and congealed into a mass of cells with no capacity for cognition. The resulting person(s) would essentially be a clone of the original.

As she pointed out, that's not the purpose of the research, I'm just quibbling about how these creatures are commonly referred to as immortal. The research into telomeres could result in some kind of Lazarus treatment, but as pointed out in the video, in humans this would likely not result in us de-aging to such an extent. Most likely it would only "stop the clock" at our current age, but it could also potentially allow us to (very slowly) reverse the negative effects of aging to have the bone, neuron, and muscle resilience of a 30 year old.

[AshenRJ]

7:26
"And a bit like the plastic bits at the end of our shoelaces..."

They're called aglets, there's an entire song about them.

[Gengh]

Hopefully one day we may be able to use something similar as a local treatment to fix a severed spine or other damaged tissues.

[colemanwalsh]

I remember watching a documentary about a scientist in Japan that was obsessed with them, and how they may be the key for immortality in humans or much longer lifespans.

[IonSquared]

When literal eternal life isn't even the coolest thing you can do: sending yourself back in time is. Unbelievable creature.

[last_surprise]

“Plastic bits on our shoelaces”

Looks like somebody has never watched phineas and ferb

[triggerwarning]

I would love to do this, presuming these are light sensitive, split the groups into two tanks (or one per jelly), and flash lights red for a tested timeframe (say a day- so it's not too long or short), then some of the jellyfish a pinch to trigger it going back to polyp. The other is a control group of course. Then keep repeating this to see if the jellyfish starts reverting based on seeing the red light.

[andrea]

It is always a treat when this channel produces new videos! Please keep them coming.

[bluebeta]

your layout for all your videos are amazing. You explain a little bit, then explain further with strong vocabulary and high res pics and good editing. Nice videos.

[TheAz]

They literally go "reject maturity, return to polyp"