The Jellyfish that Moved through Time
Jellyfish can move through time in both directions: towards the future, or towards the past. When adult jellyfish, or medusas, are under stress, a complex cascade of dormant gene activations can turn back the clock so they transform back into their youthful selves. They shed their limbs, become a drifting blob and morph into polyps, twiggy growths that attach to rocks or plants. Making them, effectively, immortal.
Artwork created with Midjourney, edited in Procreate by (c) wondermash
“This finding appeared to debunk the most fundamental law of the natural world — you are born, and then you die”, stated the scientists that first discovered it in a 1996 paper called Reversing the Life Cycle.
The Turritopsis dohrnii jellyfish is small and widespread: it calls anywhere between the Pacific Ocean, Mediterranean and Caribbean its home. Many species of anemone and coral have generative abilities that are remarkable, such as hydras that can regrow organs, or when chopped up, each part can regenerate to form complete new hydra’s.
When under stress or threatened T. dohrnii can reverse back to their juvenile state and it can do this indefinitely. This doesn’t mean jellyfish can’t die: they can surely die being eaten by a predator or thrown on the shore, but not of old age.
Does this make them an enviable species, or an organism caught in a perpetual loop of aging and regressing? Would you want to change places with a jellyfish and become your toddler self again? What would a human world with forward and backward living people look like?