That isn’t hyperbole. The jellyfish “Turritopsis Nutricula” really is immortal. After reaching sexual maturity, this jellyfish is able to reverse its aging process and become a polyp again. The ability to reverse the life cycle is probably unique in the animal kingdom, and allows the jellyfish to bypass death, rendering the Turritopsis nutricula biologically immortal. Lab tests showed that 100% of specimens reverted to the polyp stage.

A jellyfish-like hydrozoan with a novel power to rewind its life cycle has been spreading rapidly around the world’s oceans without anyone taking much notice, researchers say.

The life history of Turritopsis dohrnii takes such twists and turns that only a new genetic analysis has revealed that the creature is invading waters worldwide, says Maria Pia Miglietta of Pennsylvania State University in University Park.

The first peculiarity of the seven species of Turritopsis had inspired biologists to describe these hydrozoans as “potentially immortal.” The adults form filmy bells reminiscent of their jellyfish relatives. When times get tough, faced with scarce food or other catastrophe, Turritopsis often don’t die. They just get young again.

Normally the organisms reproduce like grown-ups with sperm and eggs. In case of emergency, though, a bedeviled bell sinks down and the blob of tissue sticks to a surface below. There Turritopsis’ cells seem to reverse their life stage. When the blob grows again, it becomes the stalklike polyp of its youth and matures into a free-floating bell all over again. “This is equivalent to a butterfly that goes back to a caterpillar,” Miglietta says.

That’s a fine trick for surviving the strains of being swallowed in a huge gulp of water for a ship’s ballast and being hauled around the world, Miglietta says. The creatures can restart their life cycles right in the bottom of the ballast tank. Ballast water has become the major route for moving alien species from one ocean to another, and that’s probably what’s happening to T. dohrnii, Miglietta said June 21 in Minneapolis during the Evolution 2008 meeting.

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Festo, the same company that brought us the Air Ray robot last year, has developed yet another graceful robot inspired by a creature of the sea. In fact, they have developed two versions, both based on the common jellyfish: the AquaJelly and the AirJelly. According to Festo, the AquaJelly is “an artificial autonomous jellyfish with an electric drive and an intelligent, adaptive mechanical system.” Apparently the idea is to have several of the robots autonomously working together using a communication system composed of Zigbee short-range radio on the surface and LEDs when underwater.

[VIA]