The only thing true about life is getting older and paying taxes. That's unless you're a "time traveler" animal that can age backwards. We're talking about the humble jellyfish.
For years, scientists have known that some types of jellyfish are biologically immortal. But researchers were shocked to discover one species of jellyfish is actually a time traveler. The comb jellyfish (Mnemiopsis leidyi) actually has the uncanny ability of being able to age backwards. Researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway were shocked to observe the phenomena happen in their lab. They found a larval ctenophore in the tank where they placed a mature comb jellyfish.
Essentially, the animal is a time traveler. It aged in reverse, becoming a real life Benjamin Button.
"The work challenges our understanding of early animal development and body plans, opening new avenues for the study of life cycle plasticity and rejuvenation. The fact that we have found a new species that uses this peculiar 'time-travel machine' raises fascinating questions about how spread this capacity is across the animal tree of life," said study co-author Joan J. Soto-Angel in a statement per Phys.org.
Time Traveler Animal
Soto-Angel and fellow researchers were able to replicate this again by recreating the circumstances. Essentially, the animal becomes extremely stressed and reverts back to infancy. And you though it was just humans being big babies.
"Witnessing how they slowly transition to a typical cydippid larva as if they were going back in time, was simply fascinating," said Soto-Angel. "Over several weeks, they not only reshaped their morphological features, but also had a completely different feeding behavior, typical of a cydippid larva."
Research suggest that the comb jellyfish may be one of the oldest animal species, dating back 700 million years. Perhaps, some of them are actually that old?
"This is a very exciting time for us," said Paul Burkhardt, who co-wrote the study. "This fascinating finding will open the door for many important discoveries. It will be interesting to reveal the molecular mechanism driving reverse development, and what happens to the animal's nerve net during this process."
Of course, the real question is how do you replicate this in humans.
