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  • 2016-11-21 (xsd:date)
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  • Are Jellyfish and Lobsters Biologically Immortal? (en)
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  • Memes like the one presented above, containing the very cool-sounding claim that both jellyfish and lobsters are biologically immortal, have been popular on the internet for years. Biological immortality is usually defined as an organism that will not die from senescence, the scientific term for aging. However, as reported for BBC Earth by Colin Barras, the term is a bit of a misnomer: There are two separate questions to investigate: 1) Are jellyfish biologically immortal?; and 2) are lobsters biologically immortal? Not all jellyfish are immortal, but apparent biologic immortality has been documented in one specific species of jellyfish known as Turritopsis nutricula —popularly referred to as the immortal jellyfish. This phenomenon was first described in a 1996 paper, demonstrated in later laboratory experiments, and is well-described in a 2013 Berkeley Science Review story by Nikki R. Kong: While multiple jellyfish species can revert to earlier life stages, Turritopsis is unique because it can do this even after reaching sexual maturity. Lobsters, however, are not biologically immortal. A discussion on this piece of internet misinformation in Smithsonian Magazine suggested that it has its origins in a 2007 NPR story about how lobsters don’t age in typical ways: What is true, however, is that lobsters do not age in a traditional sense, as discussed in a 1998 study published in FEBS Letters: A leading hypothesis for this phenomenon is that lobsters have a constant supply of an enzyme called telomerase, which can prevent cell aging. Most vertebrate animals, on the other hand, can produce this chemical ONLY in early developmental stages of life. But lobsters do ultimately end up dying, if not from a predator or disease, then simply from the process of non-stop growth. Lobsters grow by molting their exoskeleton—a very energetically demanding process that, as discussed in Smithsonian Magazine, ultimately will get the best of even the most resilient lobsters: Those 10 to 15 percent that die from the exertion of molting directly counter the claim that lobsters are biologically immortal creatures, as that would be considered death from senescence. Death from infection later in life, while a bit more of a philosophical debate, could also be argued to be natural death from aging, as College of William & Mary marine science professor Jeffrey D. Shields, said in the Smithsonian piece: One thing that is true — it is really difficult to figure out how old lobsters are due to their perennially young cellular tissue. While lobsters will always die, and probably can’t accurately be described as living fast, one could indeed argue, then, that they will always die young. (en)
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