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Many of us wonder how we could stop getting old and stay young, and this creature may give us a clue.
The creature is called “turritopsis,” a kind of jellyfish that is less than 1 cm in size. It was discovered about 130 years ago deep in the ocean. This jellyfish is often eaten by other creatures, and it is also infected by diseases easily.
In 1992 in Italy, a university student accidentally found an amazing fact about this creature. This student had been responsible for looking after the jellyfish that were kept in a bowl of water in a lab at the time, but he forgot to feed them. When he came back to the lab a few days later, he was afraid that the jellyfish would all have died. However, to his surprise, there was no sign of jellyfish in the bowl. Instead, there were tiny groups of cells, which were, so to speak, “baby jellyfish.” The jellyfish had “become younger” by going back to an early stage of development.
The turritopsis seems to go back to its younger state when it grows older or when it is under higher stress such as starvation. Perhaps they got this special ability in the process of evolution because they are very weak creatures.
In 2011, Dr. Kubota, a successful turritopsis researcher at Kyoto University, observed his group of jellyfish getting young as many as nine times. This number can become larger. He says that the genes of the turritopsis may help scientists develop ways to regenerate damaged or lost human body parts.