This is a press release from a marine research organization, so the main implication here isn't that they're doing it because it's in any way relevant to humans. They're doing it because it's a cool thing for a marine research organization to research.
Yes, it's probably not gonna help humans, unless some of your friends are gelatinous blobs with no circulatory or nervous system and with a lifespan measured in months.
The article is pretty explicit that the interesting part is that some of the underlying epithelial repair mechanisms appear to be conserved across animals, including mammals
Hell, any research lab would implore you to make such challenge. Imagine all the things we'd missed out on if we always acted towards some certain goal(s), probably half the stuff we have today wouldn't have been invented (yet?).
Clytia is not just your normal jellyfish, is an organism that alternates between a jellyfish and a polyp that live in small colonies, not unlike corals but less complex and without hard calcified skeletons.
Is also in the same group that has the only animals known to be potentially immortal. I'm not joking. This things exist. So the word "heal" here can mean different things than people expects. Imagine that as we grow older and decaying we could decide to grow a new genetic clone of "me" inside and reborn as happy babies, discarding our older shell. Some of this animals can do this to "heal" and the trick can be used an undefined amount of times. Those creatures are really ancient and have a few tricks on their sleeves.
Relevant for humans, as reef corals are related with jellyfishes and have free larvae that could respond in a similar way to temperature damage. Clytia could thrive when corals will die. This just another clue that some people is being more and more concerned by AMOC, even if it may be too late yet with all the warmongers ruining our last chances
But I would still be careful not to blur together wound healing, regeneration and rejuvenation. They may share some cellular machinery, but they are not the same process
> Yes, it's probably not gonna help humans, unless some of your friends are gelatinous blobs with no circulatory or nervous system and with a lifespan measured in months.
Who knows, maybe we'll have organic suites for people or sealing membranes for mechanisms.
My memories of being a 6-7 years old, throwing blue jellyfish on each other in "jelly wars" with other kids just suddenly turned into a traumatic memory instead.
Fun fact; where I grew up, we only had (at the time at least) two different types of jellyfish in the sea, blue and red ones. Easy to tell apart, one is "good", one is bad. However, now living in a very different place, suddenly what I learnt as a child is no longer right, there are tens of different species, some bad blue ones, some "less bad" red ones, and the easy "blue good, red bad" no longer works and it took a hard lesson to learn about this :)
I mean, all in all, most life forms are reproductive unit in some stage, or part of i, from the species point of view. Though some individual prove sterile.
What I like about this work is that the jellyfish may be less important as a source of some magical "regeneration gene" and more useful as a system where you can actually see the basic mechanics clearly
They're not even technically one organism, but colonies of independent but mostly specialized organisms. I'd be willing to bet that has something to do with the articles title
True jellyfish (like moon jellies, box jellyfish)are a single organism, just like you or me. Theres a single genome and one body.
Portuguese man o’ war is not a single organism at all but a siphonophore, a colony of many genetically identical but specialized individual organisms called zooids, all fused together and functionally dependent on each other.
Whats the difference between a siphonophore and a single organism? Aren't all the organs of an organism genetically identical, specialized, fused together, and functionally dependent on each other?
It's a very fuzzy line. But according to The Octopus Lady's video in the other comment, it's because separating them from the other zooids doesn't result in immediate death. They may die later due to lack of ability to swim, or eat, but that is a secondary cause which is considered important.
It's just a fact about the evolutionary history. You are a "multicellular" organism; you are composed of a bunch of genetically identical cells that fuse with each other and differentiate their development to specialize in certain tasks. It's not just your organs; your entire being is like that.
Siphonophores are identical, except that they can be subdivided into units that are, much like organs, composed of multiple cells. Those units can be identified as evolutionary derivations of certain branches of the tree of life. This is more similar to your mitochondria, which are (like zooids) identifiable as having once been independent organisms, though unlike zooids your mitochondria are not genetically identical to you.
True. And also amazing how complex their interactions can be! Just because immune cells are often individually motile, does not mean they're not intimately interoperating within an incredibly complex social ecology of cells. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_cell is full of surprises.
Your comment has completely failed to distinguish "organisms" from "siphonophores". As you describe yourself, a siphonophore also has a single genome and one body.
Agreed. I always hated the 'two part', 'payoff'-based drama of titles like these, even before the LLM era. If it was lazy before (it was), it now comes off as 'one-click' lazy. Sadly, The Guardian has become infested with this style lately.
Jellyfish, bieng transparent and without a brain, dont have any secrets, and instantainious wound healing might be the compensation for that, or price, but by all accounts they have managed to get by more or less as they are, for 700 million years and so will likely be availible for further observation, for as long as we manage to stick around.
This is a press release from a marine research organization, so the main implication here isn't that they're doing it because it's in any way relevant to humans. They're doing it because it's a cool thing for a marine research organization to research.
Yes, it's probably not gonna help humans, unless some of your friends are gelatinous blobs with no circulatory or nervous system and with a lifespan measured in months.
The article is pretty explicit that the interesting part is that some of the underlying epithelial repair mechanisms appear to be conserved across animals, including mammals
What about if they exhibit three out of four of those symptoms?
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I'm divorced too.
Novo Nordisk might challenge the idea that application follows directly from research objectives
Hell, any research lab would implore you to make such challenge. Imagine all the things we'd missed out on if we always acted towards some certain goal(s), probably half the stuff we have today wouldn't have been invented (yet?).
Clytia is not just your normal jellyfish, is an organism that alternates between a jellyfish and a polyp that live in small colonies, not unlike corals but less complex and without hard calcified skeletons.
Is also in the same group that has the only animals known to be potentially immortal. I'm not joking. This things exist. So the word "heal" here can mean different things than people expects. Imagine that as we grow older and decaying we could decide to grow a new genetic clone of "me" inside and reborn as happy babies, discarding our older shell. Some of this animals can do this to "heal" and the trick can be used an undefined amount of times. Those creatures are really ancient and have a few tricks on their sleeves.
Relevant for humans, as reef corals are related with jellyfishes and have free larvae that could respond in a similar way to temperature damage. Clytia could thrive when corals will die. This just another clue that some people is being more and more concerned by AMOC, even if it may be too late yet with all the warmongers ruining our last chances
But I would still be careful not to blur together wound healing, regeneration and rejuvenation. They may share some cellular machinery, but they are not the same process
very interesting insights! thanks!
> Yes, it's probably not gonna help humans, unless some of your friends are gelatinous blobs with no circulatory or nervous system and with a lifespan measured in months.
Who knows, maybe we'll have organic suites for people or sealing membranes for mechanisms.
I think it's the tiny chance they it will help humans that makes it so fascinating.
> The medusa, the free-swimming form most people picture when they hear the term jellyfish, is only one stage of the animal’s life cycle.
> We tend to think of the flower—or the jellyfish—as the organism, but these are actually reproductive units.
I'll never look at jellyfish the same.
Same. Somehow "the jellyfish is basically the flower" is the detail that stuck with me more than the wound healing
Wait, so they’re sea jizz?!
My memories of being a 6-7 years old, throwing blue jellyfish on each other in "jelly wars" with other kids just suddenly turned into a traumatic memory instead.
Fun fact; where I grew up, we only had (at the time at least) two different types of jellyfish in the sea, blue and red ones. Easy to tell apart, one is "good", one is bad. However, now living in a very different place, suddenly what I learnt as a child is no longer right, there are tens of different species, some bad blue ones, some "less bad" red ones, and the easy "blue good, red bad" no longer works and it took a hard lesson to learn about this :)
Not, jellyfishes are the mother ship. More like sea pollen
I mean, all in all, most life forms are reproductive unit in some stage, or part of i, from the species point of view. Though some individual prove sterile.
What I like about this work is that the jellyfish may be less important as a source of some magical "regeneration gene" and more useful as a system where you can actually see the basic mechanics clearly
Don't they have the advantage of having very simple tissue?
Simpler tissue makes it easier to see the core mechanics without blood vessels, inflammation and a lot of other processes happening at the same time
They're not even technically one organism, but colonies of independent but mostly specialized organisms. I'd be willing to bet that has something to do with the articles title
True jellyfish (like moon jellies, box jellyfish)are a single organism, just like you or me. Theres a single genome and one body.
Portuguese man o’ war is not a single organism at all but a siphonophore, a colony of many genetically identical but specialized individual organisms called zooids, all fused together and functionally dependent on each other.
Whats the difference between a siphonophore and a single organism? Aren't all the organs of an organism genetically identical, specialized, fused together, and functionally dependent on each other?
It's a very fuzzy line. But according to The Octopus Lady's video in the other comment, it's because separating them from the other zooids doesn't result in immediate death. They may die later due to lack of ability to swim, or eat, but that is a secondary cause which is considered important.
It's just a fact about the evolutionary history. You are a "multicellular" organism; you are composed of a bunch of genetically identical cells that fuse with each other and differentiate their development to specialize in certain tasks. It's not just your organs; your entire being is like that.
Siphonophores are identical, except that they can be subdivided into units that are, much like organs, composed of multiple cells. Those units can be identified as evolutionary derivations of certain branches of the tree of life. This is more similar to your mitochondria, which are (like zooids) identifiable as having once been independent organisms, though unlike zooids your mitochondria are not genetically identical to you.
> It's not just your organs; your entire being is like that.
Actually, it bears pointing out that significant parts of you, like your blood, remain single-celled even though you're "multicellular".
Immune system is mostly single cells
True. And also amazing how complex their interactions can be! Just because immune cells are often individually motile, does not mean they're not intimately interoperating within an incredibly complex social ecology of cells. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_cell is full of surprises.
its anatomy
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Your comment has completely failed to distinguish "organisms" from "siphonophores". As you describe yourself, a siphonophore also has a single genome and one body.
You're thinking of Siphonophores like the Portugese Man-o-war. The Octopus Lady has a wonderful video on them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipDpbYQdFEA
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The title seems like clickbait for a super medical cream.
Agreed. I always hated the 'two part', 'payoff'-based drama of titles like these, even before the LLM era. If it was lazy before (it was), it now comes off as 'one-click' lazy. Sadly, The Guardian has become infested with this style lately.
Doctors hate them.
Jellyfish, bieng transparent and without a brain, dont have any secrets, and instantainious wound healing might be the compensation for that, or price, but by all accounts they have managed to get by more or less as they are, for 700 million years and so will likely be availible for further observation, for as long as we manage to stick around.
At first glance I imagined this was a magic way to heal a wound by rubbing a jellyfish on it. Skin irritation be damned, this is gonna save lives.
But no. No such joy.
Just use the terrestrial gelatinous equivalent, Aloe vera. It works wonderfully creating a sort of jellyfish skin over your skin.
Have they tried waterboarding them, yet?
9 out of 10 doctors…
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TL/DR: be made of jelly
how does this work, when they just sting
Healing their own wounds, not ours.
Nothing in the article mentioned stinging I am confused what you are asking ?