Could this creature hold the key to living forever? This is the Turritopsis dohrnii, or what is more often called the immortal jellyfish. They have been floating around the oceans for millions of years and when they begin to grow old or they get hurt they have a cool little trick.
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00:00 Could this creature hold the key to living forever?
00:06 This is the Turritopsis Dorney, or what is more often called the immortal jellyfish.
00:10 They have been floating around the ocean for millions of years, and when they begin to
00:14 grow old or they get hurt, they have a cool little trick.
00:17 They reabsorb their tentacles and float down to the bottom of the sea, where they effectively
00:20 become a baby jellyfish once again, returning to their polyp stage.
00:25 Once there, they bud and produce new adult versions of themselves, exact recreations
00:29 of their previous adult form.
00:31 It's a wild life cycle, and experts say it's the only creature on the entire planet that
00:35 rejuvenates in this way after reproducing.
00:38 But how does it work?
00:39 Well, scientists are trying to figure that out, and they're already on the trail.
00:43 Researchers studying the immortal jellyfish's genome have already identified at least a
00:47 thousand of its genes related to DNA repair and aging.
00:50 And another study back in 2019 discovered that the adult and polyp versions of the jellyfish
00:56 had some cells which while the same, function differently, which they said at the time could
01:00 mean that some of their cells undergo a reprogramming of structural and functional commitment and
01:05 gene expression, or that they are sort of turned back and reset, just like a clock.
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