The Secret to Immortality

For unimaginable amounts of reasons, humans have gone to great lengths to learn the secrets of immortality. The poor and the rich alike have tried everything they know to find this secret, but to no avail. The advancements in science and technology have put the human race further than it has ever been in the human existence. Yet, this advancement had also been unable to shed light on the one secret that had eluded the grasp of humans: immortality.

Nature has shown the answer to us humans, millions of years ago, but up until in recent history humans have not realised that in nature, there exists a creature that is immortal. The world would have been a much different place had the long gone queens, kings and pharaohs who had unlimited wealth and power, who desired immortality more than anything in the world, known that such a creature existed. They would have spent everything to find the secrets of this creature.

About 700 million years ago, there appeared a creature with multi-organs, in the oceans of the world, which is still found today. There are hundreds of different species of this creature now in the world today. We call these creatures, jellyfish, sometimes simplified to jellies or sea jellies. Majority of these creatures are free-swimming members of the phylum Cnidaria.

Jellies are found in a wide range of areas including fresh water, ocean surface and in the dark, deep realms of the vast ocean. Out of all these creatures, there exists one, which is unique: Turritopsis nutricula, also known as the immortal jellyfish. Yes, this particular species of jellyfish is immortal, so it does not die of old age.

The immortal jellyfish is the only creature in the animal kingdom, which can be considered as biologically immortal. The sexually mature Turritopsis is only about 5 millimetres in diameter. It is found floating freely in warm ocean waters, appearing as a transparent and multi-tantacled parachute.

After reaching sexual maturity, Turritopsis nutricula is able to revert to its polyp form and restart life all over again. According to scientific beliefs, the jelly achieves this by a process called transdifferentiation. What this term means is that a cell in jelly, which has been specialized for a particular function, transforms into an entirely new cell with an altered function. This process is responsible for the transformation of the jellyfish into a completely new polyp.

Scientists have not yet been able to uncover the reason why this process takes place; but there are some speculations that transdifferentiation in the immortal jellyfish occurs when the jelly is severely stressed, such as in the case of starvation.

Theoretically, the process of transdifferentiation can go on endlessly in the immortal jelly. So far, not a single specimen has been studied for an extended period to observe this feature, in the wild. However, 100% of the specimens studied in the lab were able to undergo the process of transdifferentiation, without a single death of specimen. However these creatures are also susceptible to predation and diseases as any other living organism in their natural environment.

In the recent past, there have been many remarkable breakthroughs in stem cell research. Turritopsis nutricula’s ability to bypass death has inspired many scientists to do in-depth research into stem cells. Scientists are curious of the possibility that human cells may be capable of doing what the immortal jellyfish does, given the right conditions and the right signals.

This tiny jellyfish, which potentially holds many answers to curing age-related ailments, may be a promising aspect of regenerative medicine, in a near future. If somehow this quality of the immortal jellyfish could be fully understood, not only will it help people with injuries heal faster, but also reverse aging and perhaps achieve immortality.