Are there living beings in the world that can live forever? Heck, you don't have to say, there might be a creature that can theoretically do it, and that's the lighthouse jellyfish, which can easily get itself back into its infancy and experience the feeling of growing up again.
Hello everyone, I am @ Grunt Brother, today we will talk about the legendary creatures in the ocean: lighthouse jellyfish.
The lighthouse jellyfish is a small jellyfish, about four to five millimeters in diameter, with a transparent bell-shaped body, which can see the red digestive system in its body, which looks like a lighthouse from a distance, hence the name lighthouse jellyfish.
Normally, jellyfish go through two stages in their life, the hydra type and the jellyfish type. After the hydra-type jellyfish passes through the transverse split larvae and disc-shaped larvae, it will become the familiar appearance.
Generally speaking, mature jellyfish can no longer become the hydra type when they are young, but the lighthouse jellyfish is unique, not only can change back into juveniles, but also repeatedly jump between mature and juvenile. It is the only organism known to be able to recover from the maturation stage to the juvenile stage.
Can you imagine a butterfly and then turn back into a caterpillar? This ability is exactly why the lighthouse jellyfish is considered to be possible to live forever!
In 1996, The Italian biologist Stefano Piraino conducted induction experiments on 4,000 jellyfish lighthouse jellyfish in different developmental states by starving jellyfish, changing the water temperature, reducing the salinity of the water, causing mechanical trauma, and so on.
Under his experiments, the lighthouse jellyfish of these jellyfish bodies all appeared to transform into hydra bodies, and none of them died. That is to say, as long as the conditions are right, almost all lighthouse jellyfish may have this ability to reverse growth, which is equivalent to human beings retreating from the state of 25 years old to the state of 5 years old, and then re-developing.
And this process may be "infinitely repeated", which means that the lighthouse jellyfish may gain an infinite lifespan as long as they continue to repeat this process.
But, do you think that's the end of it?
According to National Geographic, the lighthouse jellyfish, which has transformed into a hydra body, will even copy itself! In the hydra state, it can reproduce hundreds of jellyfish, which is almost exactly the same as the DNA in the jellyfish state.
So scientists speculate that it is precisely because of this property that the lighthouse jellyfish has become a species that in theory, as long as it is not eaten or sick and dies, it will hardly die.
So if lighthouse jellyfish can rejuvenate and even clone themselves indefinitely, why don't they generate wisdom and dominate the ocean?
Maria Pia Miglietta, an expert on the hydra family at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, has found that the global lighthouse jellyfish is in a state of frenzied expansion. Maria took multiple sets of lighthouse jellyfish samples from around the world and compared their genes, and the results were astounding.
Whether it is southern or northern Japan, Italy or Spain, New Zealand or Tasmania, the eastern United States or the east and west coasts of Panama, their genes are exactly the same, although these jellyfish have different shapes and live thousands of miles apart, but they are all lighthouse jellyfish.
So the question is, as plankton in the ocean, jellyfish can only do short-distance up and down, can not swim against the current, how did they occupy the oceans so quickly?
In this regard, the lighthouse jellyfish has undoubtedly found the most powerful helper: humans.
The ocean-going ships we are using now will pump seawater from the port of departure to fill the ballast tank before departure, and after arriving at the port of destination, the seawater in the ballast tank will be discharged together with various organisms in the seawater.
These countless ships that shuttle over the ocean have thus become the main medium for the migration of lighthouse jellyfish. Even at this moment, there are a large number of jellyfish traveling the world in boats.
So if that's the case, has the ocean been occupied by lighthouse jellyfish? Not really!
The lighthouse jellyfish is small, at the bottom of the food chain in the ocean, and is particularly vulnerable to predation by other marine organisms, and any small fish and shrimp take it as food. And under normal circumstances, lighthouse jellyfish are still dominated by sexual reproduction.
Mature male lighthouse jellyfish will release sperm in the water, the female will suck these sperm into the body, after the completion of fertilization, the female lighthouse jellyfish will die, and the fertilized egg will slowly hatch into a hydra body, opening a new round of life cycle.
In this way, the lighthouse jellyfish mother is as great as the octopus mother!
But when the living environment endangers its survival, they will adopt asexual reproduction to protect themselves. But this environment can not be too extreme, otherwise the lighthouse jellyfish will also be unable to adapt, directly cool.
For the vast majority of lighthouse jellyfish, they may not choose to rejuvenate without a harsh environment. Even in harsh environments, once things get better, they will find opportunities to mate and die.
The code of eternal life that humanity dreams of, perhaps the lighthouse jellyfish has found.
It is possible that lighthouse jellyfish can approach immortality by growing backwards, so if the mystery can be uncovered, is it possible that humans can obtain similar abilities? And to cure terminal illnesses and even prolong human life?
Dr. Pirano thinks the same way!
In 1996, Dr. Pirano published a paper entitled Reverse Life Cycle.
In the paper, he recounts the transformation of an adult lighthouse jellyfish into a hydra body, as well as the transdifferentiation of its cells, analyzing the reverse growth of the lighthouse jellyfish from the cellular level.
The paper mentions that the cells of the lighthouse jellyfish jellyfish and the cells of the hydra body form are two completely different sets of somatic cells. It can freely switch its own cell types to change its form, which is simply a fantasy for other creatures.
But it wasn't enough to just know that lighthouse jellyfish could do that, so in 2019, Dr. Pirano published a paper with Yui Matsumoto and Maria Miglita from Texas Agricultural University.
This is the first paper on the molecular level of human beings to conduct genetic sequencing research on lighthouse jellyfish.
They tried to understand what genes the lighthouse jellyfish had when they were growing backwards, which allowed them to do such bizarre things, and how these genes controlled the development of living organisms, cell transdifference, and aging.
If we can unravel these mysteries and understand the mystery of the lighthouse jellyfish, then perhaps in the near future, human beings may really achieve a breakthrough in lifespan, and even be able to grow backwards like the lighthouse jellyfish.
It may break the Guinness Book of Records, grab the title of the world's longest-lived creature that the lighthouse jellyfish has occupied for a long time.
But until now, there are still too many secrets about the lighthouse jellyfish that have not been cracked, and scientists are actively exploring.
I'm a grunt brother, today's story ends here, don't forget to like the attention and then go, we will next issue, goodbye.