Are jellyfish our ticket to the stars?

April 16th, 02010 by Austin Brown

hydrozoa

A species of jellyfish called Turritopsis nutricula utilizes a cellular process called transdifferentiation to effectively live forever. The process tends to be used by animals like salamanders to regenerate lost or injured body parts. The Turritopsis nutricula, however, can use the process to completely revert themselves into a polyp form, restarting their life-cycle.

Research was published in 2008 showing that this ability has allowed the jellyfish to survive long trips in ballast compartments on cargo ships. They’ve therefore been able to silently invade the world’s oceans and have been observed in the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean.

Harnessing this process would be a boon to Extropianism, a philosophy that includes the hope that humans will one day be able to live indefinitely. On top of this goal, perhaps their ability to colonize distant seas could be a helpful model in the service of “directed panspermia,” a process Michael Mautner has claimed, in the Journal of Cosmology, to be a moral obligation.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 16th, 02010 at 3:00 am and is filed under Long Term Science, Long Term Thinking.

http://www.thistledown.org/?p=539 www.thistledown.org » a smattering of interesting science articles

[...] http://blog.longnow.org/2010/04/16/are-jellyfish-our-ticket-to-the-stars/ [...]
http://www.visualastronomy.com Sean

Heck, I think it would even be great to send the jellyfish themselves on an interstellar voyage! That way even if we can’t preserve the human species, there is some sample of Earth life floating around out there.

Sean
http://www.longnow.org Austin Brown

BTW – I think I finally figured out the ending to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
http://ouroboros.wordpress.com CP

Grumble: extropianism isn’t “the” hope that humans will one day be able to live indefinitely. As the (linked) Wikipedia article indicates, the philosophy includes a lot of other unrelated baggage.

While all those who consider themselves may hope for indefinite extension of the human lifespan, not all who hope for indefinite extension of the human lifespans consider themselves extropians.
http://www.longnow.org Austin Brown

Fair point, CP. Edited.
http://nickdunlop.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/the-immortal-jellyfish-turritopsis-nutricula/ The Immortal Jellyfish – Turritopsis nutricula « Nick Dunlop

[...] via The Long Now blog and Current Protocols. Research into these creatures can be found here. The Long Now blog post also mentions links to potential for directed human evolution (Extropianism – look it up, it was new to me too) and eventual space travel. [...]
http://mcneillfamily.com/2010/04/21/are-jellyfish-our-ticket-to-the-stars/ Are jellyfish our ticket to the stars? « flakes of nuisance

[...] HERE FOR MORE »» The Long Now Blog Are jellyfish our ticket to the stars?: .) 0 break off a [...]
http://whitepagesreverselookup-a.org/92/pseudo-tumor-cerebri-training-wheels-2/ Pseudo-tumor Cerebri Training Wheels | Reverse Phone Lookup

[...] Are jellyfish our ticket to the stars? – The Long Now Blog [...]

Are jellyfish our ticket to the stars?

The Long Now Blog

Categories

Archives

Meta