The search for immortality or eternal life has been closely linked to the history of the human being. Our fear of perishing has inspired many religions, such as Ancient Egypt, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism; to believe in the survival of the soul after death and, in some cases, up to reincarnation. In addition, the immortality of the soul has been a highly questioned topic in philosophy, as in Plato’s Dialogues and in works by the scholastic Thomas Aquinas and the materialist Ludwig Feuerbach, among others.
Ancient science also ruled on the question. Through alchemy, an attempt was made to create the Philosopher’s Stone, a material that supposedly could provide eternal youth to its wearer. Although this rock was never found, modern science has also bet on the preservation of the physical body, without going into questions related to the soul. The study of the aging process has led us to discover telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that contain repetitive sequences of non-coding DNA to protect genetic material from damage. Each time the cell divides, these are shortened, until, after a certain number of partitions, they are so short that the cell can no longer divide, leading to senescence (aging) or apoptosis (cell death). It is believed that, if the integrity of the chromosomes could be preserved, it would be possible to fight against aging and extend the life span.
Therefore, until now, strictly speaking, one cannot speak of strict immortality in science. However, there is a type of ‘eternal life’ in nature called cyclical immortality. According to several studies, the Caribbean ‘immortal jellyfish’ ( Turritopsis nutricula ) could be considered to have the gift of eternal life. This animal, in the face of adverse conditions, both environmental and internal, is capable of reversing its life cycle and returning to the form of a polyp, its state of sexual immaturity, although it has already reached maturity. A power in the pure style of the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), but indefinitely and being able to go back and forth in time.
How Turritopsis nutricula is able to overcome the passage of time is still a mystery. What is known is that to rejuvenate they use a process called cellular transdifferentiation, in which a cell is transformed into a different type of cell, without the need to be a stem cell; giving rise to other cells outside the already established differentiation pathway. Something that in humans has only been described in a disease called Barrett’s syndrome.
However, although this jellyfish cannot die ‘old’, it is just as deadly as the rest of the individuals on the planet, since at no time is it safe from dangers such as predation, serious diseases or the unpredictable effects of climate change . However, at the moment it seems that it is doing quite well, it has already managed to colonize the oceans of the entire planet.
