Do Jellyfish hold the secret to Immortality?

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Does 'immortal' jellyfish have the secret to everlasting life?

By Lauren Said-Moorhouse and Amanda Sealy, for CNN

updated 12:02 PM EDT, Fri August 29, 2014

For many beach-goers, jellyfish are a nuisance that blights the seashore. But some scientists believe they could hold the key to immortality.

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Lifecycle of the 'immortal' jellyfish

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Japanese scarlet jellyfish is known as the "immortal jellyfish"
• Professor Shin Kubota is a marine expert from Japan researching its life cycle
• He says the jellyfish could be the key to rejuvenation in humans

The Art of Movement is a monthly show that highlights the most significant innovations in science and technology that are helping shape our modern world.

(CNN) -- For centuries, man has been on a quest to find the elixir to eternal life. Alchemists struggled fruitlessly to create the legendary philosopher's stone, a mythical substance capable of turning base metals into precious gold and said to hold the key to immortality.

But perhaps they were going about it the wrong way. Instead of searching for answers on land, maybe they should have been looking to the sea.

The magic of bioluminescence

World's jellyfish population booming

Thousands of blue creatures wash ashore

In the seaside town of Shirahama, in Japan, one man thinks he knows what holds the key to everlasting life: jellyfish.

Shin Kubota is a professor at Kyoto University's Seto Marine Biological Laboratory. He began studying the gelatinous sea creatures in 1979, and there's one type with which he's particularly preoccupied: the scarlet jellyfish.

"They don't die," Kubota says, "they rejuvenate." He adds that they are one of three jellyfish species in japan that are considered "immortal."

"One day in my plankton net, there was a small scarlet jellyfish from (the) south, which had many sharp sticks stuck into its body," he recalls. "I thought 'poor thing' and removed all of the sticks, hoping it may become better and swim again. But it didn't and shrunk. However, it rejuvenated!"

Swimming with sharks, without a cage

It's less immortality and more regeneration, but Kubota believes these tiny marine animals could hold the secret to perpetual life.

When an adult scarlet jellyfish -- or medusa -- is injured, it goes to the bottom of the ocean floor. From there, it morphs back into its infant state, known as a polyp. Then the polyp becomes a new medusa, allowing the jellyfish to move between an adult and infant state in about two months.

Kubota has succeeded in making one jellyfish rejuvenate an incredible 12 times in the lab. But there remain many unanswered questions.

"There should be a key to rejuvenation in the system of scarlet jellyfish," says Kubota. "I'd like to believe it could be applied to human beings, because genetically, jellyfish and humans are not so different."

Watch the video below to see more about Kubota's work at the Seto Marine Biological Laboratory and Japan's "immortal" jellyfish.

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Is this the secret to immortality?

There is a type of regeneration possible for some or all humans as well. However, people don't always access this part of themselves. 

For example, when others died of whooping cough in 1950 I finally got tired of fighting it and sort of "Let Go Let God". By doing this I stopped struggling and "DIDN't" die of exhaustion by struggling against it. 

But, I also had an experience of Archangel Michael while my grandmother was singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". This gave me hope and I wanted to be like Archangle Michael and his band of archangels.

Later, I had a head injury I guess on the back of my head. This gave me symptoms of epilepsy with periodic seizures where I would be asleep and suddenly wake up into a horror movie where I was being murdered. I couldn't win and so once again I had to give up and live. Whereas many others just might have died of shock instead from having this kind of experience out of the blue when they were 10 years old. 

Eventually, at age 15 I asked God to come live in my body with me (and he did) and my seizures suddenly stopped. Within 3 months my appearance completely changed and girls wanted to go out with me and go steady with me. At the time I just thought they wanted to be with God who lived in my body with me now. That was probably true. But, I was alive and would have been dead if I hadn't invited God to live in my body with me.

So, finally I stopped being jealous of God's influence over women and accepted my state of affairs.

Then, I was asked to leave my childhood church because I was just too 1960s and progressive for them. So, I was suicidal for a few years from about 1969 until around 1973. However, then I had mystical experiences which completely changed my life (sort of like Prophets describe in the Old Testament) and I was sort of okay once again. I got married and had a son during the next year and I had a reason to stay alive for him, and then eventually for all my other children as they were born or adopted by me as step children along the way.

Then once again I got a  heart virus in 1998 in the fall. When the angels came to me (white angels which I consider to be Resurrection Angels) they started saying in unison loudly, "You aren't going to die. Your life will get better now". They were right and this led to my first blog in 1999 in the summer when I was told by doctors (after about 8 months of thinking I might die) that I had had a heart virus. Because before this they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me completely. After this, I have written and compiles 3 blogs in grattitude to God for giving me not only back my life but actually a much better life in many ways than I ever had before. What goes around comes around might be the operative words here. If you take care of yourself and all people and life around you then God takes care of you too. This is my thought on the subject of immortality.

I now just have this blog at intuitivefred888 and one called dragonofcompassion.com where I put longer things God has had me write or compile or both. (the dragonofcompassion.com is all in lower case letters just like intuitivefred888 that you should be able to find if you Google intuitivefred888 anywhere Google is).

And as I was writing all the above as a comment this happened:And a bird landed on my back