Key points from article :
The secret of immortality may be contained within a jellyfish smaller than a human fingernail.
Researchers from the Universidad de Oviedo in Spain published their findings that just may help crack that mystery.
Immortal jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, appear to have twice as many copies of the genes associated with repair and protection than its mortal cousin Turritopsis rubra.
When times are tough or the jelly is starving, it re-absorbs its own tentacles and sinks to the seafloor.
The jelly's telomeres act like little DNA hard hats, protecting the ends of chromosomal strands as they reproduce.
We still don't know how Turritopsis dohrnii edits its cells so easily, and on a semantic and philosophical level.
Still learning how to replace brain cells, for instance, could unlock new treatments for diseases that are untreatable like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's.
"From this knowledge we hope to find better answers to the many diseases associated with aging that overwhelm us today," said the lead scientist.
Research by Universidad de Oviedo in Spain published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
