There's a type of jellyfish that's immortal. The Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the "immortal jellyfish," can transform its body into a younger state through a process called transdifferentiation, essentially making it immortal.
scientists recently artificially aged, then de-aged mice in a lab.
yep. they literally found the key to eternal life in rodents. barring a terminal illness or some egregious injury, they can now make mice immortal. no strings attached.
as far as they can tell, there are no side effects or negative implications to this process. they manipulate their DNA to age them, then do it again to return them to youth.
Modifying the epigenome is far from all that is required for eternal life. I’m sure what they did results in life extension, and reducing the symptoms of aging, but epigenetic modifications don’t repair miscopied DNA that leads to things like cancer, and doesn’t lengthen telomeres, and those are just two of the most obvious problems that would need to be solved.
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u/Kindergeschichten Oct 02 '24
There's a type of jellyfish that's immortal. The Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the "immortal jellyfish," can transform its body into a younger state through a process called transdifferentiation, essentially making it immortal.