The world's only immortal animal?

[FinalFeature]

(Image from yahoo)

According to the yahoo newsletter this is the worlds only immortal species. Its called a turritopsis nutricula jellyfish. I find it intresting that if scientists can figure out immortality then all of us could be immortal and enjoy Lego forever. The only thing that would be negative is the population of humans would increase instead of staying at a good balance.

Discuss

[General Magma]

That's interesting! If only I could do that to enjoy my hobby forever.

Isn't that one of those newly discovered species from a while back?

~ General Magma

Edited March 19, 2010 by General Magma

[FilmGirl27]

(Image from yahoo)

According to the yahoo newsletter this is the worlds only immortal species. Its called a turritopsis nutricula jellyfish. I find it intresting that if scientists can figure out immortality then all of us could be immortal and enjoy Lego forever. The only thing that would be negative is the population of humans would increase instead of staying at a good balance.

Discuss

Hmm, that's really interesting. Is that the same jellyfish they found under Antartica recently?

Anyway, looking at this, it might actually be possible for scientists to work out how this works and we might have immortal humans one day.

I don't really like that idea though. Immortality would be so boring.

[FinalFeature]

According to the article when its at a adult stage it turns itself back to its 1st stage and recycles again and again and again forever. It also says there everywhere around the globe. Another article. Another thing is there very tiny and are less in size of a human finger.

Edited March 19, 2010 by LegoGalactus

[General Magma]

That indeed is very small. At first I thought it was around the size of a normal jellyfish, but it actually is as big as a human finger nail. Minifig scaled jellyfishes anyone?

@FilmGirl27: Now I have read that article Galactus just posted, I can say it's not the one found under Antarctica recently, it actually has at least been here since 1833 already.

~ General Magma

Edited March 19, 2010 by General Magma

[Big Cam]

That is actually very facsinating, image if we figured that one out. Yikes.

[RileyC]

wow thats interesting. It really make you think about how special the ecosystems on the Earth really are.

[Spyder]

I doubt it would live forever if I stabbed it...

[polarbomber]

not immortal if it gets swallowed by a whale . true immortality could never be achieved , you can always get knocked down by a bus

more importantly DOES THE SUN HAVE A SHADOW ??

Edited March 19, 2010 by polarbomber

[MetroiD]

Thanks for sharing. Those articles makes a nice informative reading ;) I don't "believe" in immortality though - or in mortality per se, for that matter.

[Joey Lock]

I would hate for the Humans to find Immortality. Because any kind of force or army would be obsolete, No one has anyone to turn to, so everyone will steal stuff, Everyone will hate each other, everyone will be miserable and the worlds most horrible and annoying people will be there every second of the day. So No, Immortality isn't good.

[dr_spock]

If you can live forever, would there be any need to reproduce?

[JimBee]

Interesting... I'd rather that scientists will leave this one alone for once, though. I'd imagine it would cause more problems than it would solve, a growing population and lack of food the largest of them. Not to mention diseases and the fact that it "goes against my beliefs", if that's a way to say it.

A movie on this would be interesting. Action and sci-fi, please.

If you can live forever, would there be any need to reproduce?

No, but I doubt many people would agree to that. The same people living forever? Sounds perverse to me. And then there's the fact that no one is going to quit having sex, to put it bluntly.

[prateek]

Oh my... that's cool. The world is getting wackier by the second

[Emperor Claudius Rome]

The immortality keeps it from dying a age-related death. However, you can still die from disease or murder. So if we can harness it, people might be allowed to have a choice of if you've lived long enough, and done all you want, then you can go to special places where you can commit suicide.

Edited March 20, 2010 by Emperor Claudius Rome

[Milan]

Immortality is a bad idea.

I would not like to be one of them.

[Tereglith]

This is very interesting - I found it myself last night. Apparently it uses the same sort of regeneration process as Salamanders or Starfish, but instead of only using it when it gets maimed, like those creatures, it uses it when it gets old, effectively sending all of its individual cells back to the polyp stage. It makes one wonder, though, what evolutionary pressures have kept other species with this regenerative ability from applying it in this way - there must be something that makes it a bad evolutionary idea for higher creatures than zooplankton (Yes, Jellyfish is a plankton. ). Unfortunately, since so far as we can tell its immortality operates on the same mechanism as the regrowing of lost body parts, and ability that humans lose soon after birth, we won't be seeing any jellyfish based immortality pills on the market anytime soon.

And yes, it would die if it was hit, stabbed, swallowed by a whale, or thrown under a bus. Immortality isn't the same as invulnerability.

[Zorbas]

Very interesting. Life has found a way I guess.

Because they are able to bypass death, the number of individuals is spiking. They're now found in oceans around the globe rather than just in their native Caribbean waters. "We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion," says Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute.

A very nice quote for a sci-fi movie trailer.

[prateek]

...then you can go to special places where you can commit suicide.

Like those suicide booths in Futurama

[nina_blocks]

that picture just reminds me of some sort of horrible robotic brain jellyfish.. maybe in addition to being immortal it is also capable of cognative thought... and is evil?

[LuxorV]

Actually, it's a fact that every micro-organism like amoebas (an unfortunately viruses, too) do not die, unless they get eaten by other organisms, or decompose in other ways for changes in the environmental factors (a discusion on if they can be called 'animals' or not, and thus on the rightness of the title, is always possible).

The real thing with animals (at least vertebrates) being 'mortal' (as in biology) has to do with the so called 'Hayflick Limit'. In few words, there seems to be a 'clock' of some sort into our cells, and when they make a certain number of divisions (generating new cells), they die. Scientists are still not sure about the reason behind this.

In an iteresting sci-fi novel I read years ago proposed the existence of a spieces which did not have the Hayflick Limit proble: their cells kept on dividing. The problem is, when your brain's cells divide more that a certain number of times, new cells replace old ones, and you lose your memory. In that novel, these 'immortal' organisms were destined to die because their brains forgot how to control the breathing and heart actions.

So, given we gain biological (or clinical) immortality, we'll have to face other problems.

Coming back to the real world, there are some ideas on how to control and prevent cells' aging and decadence (and maybe surpass the Hayflick Limit). One of the more interesting ones is to keep cells clean, removing toxins and discard products which tend to poison them; but some say it is insufficient (see Alexis Carrel's experiment with chick heart fibroblasts). Another one is to rebuild the cells core from time to rime, trying to reset the clock and give them another full cycle of divisions.

I'm no biologist, so I have just summarised what I gathered on this matter from various sorces, and I hope I did not write any folies.

On a personal note, I find the thought of immortality (in the sense of living this life in this world and with my current body/brain/ memories) quite uncomfortable. To quote my beloved Douglas Adams: '[Only] Those who are born immortal instinctively know how to cope with it' (Life, the Universe, and Everything, Capther 1).

LuxorV