Article 5GYH4 The Incredible Immortality of the Fresh-Water Hydra

The Incredible Immortality of the Fresh-Water Hydra

by
Lori Dorn
from Laughing Squid on (#5GYH4)
The-Undying-Hydra.jpg

An enduring episode of the KQED series Deep Look" examines the hydra, a tiny, seemingly immortal organism that lives in tropical freshwaters. The hydra has neither eyes nor brain but does have a big mouth and an uncanny ability to regenerate every part of itself despite the most catastrophic injury. This due to its high multitude of stem cells.

Hydra are constantly regenerating their own bodies too, replacing all of their cells every 20 days. They can do that because roughly half of the cells in their bodies are stem cells,...Stem cells only make up a tiny percentage of our bodies And our stem cells degrade over time - that's why we age. But a hydra can make near-perfect copies of its stem cells ... basically forever.

Related Posts

An Animated Video Explaining the History and the Science Behind Common Vaccinations

A Ted-Ed Animated Lecture on How Cancer Cells Behave Differently in the Body

An Animated Explanation About the BRCA1 Cancer' Gene and Why Everyone Has It

A Simple Explanation as to Why Heart Cancer Is Considered to Be Such an Extremely Rare Disease

How Domestication May Have Significantly Changed the Physiology of Dogs

How the Physiology of Dying Cells Can Help Scientists Find a Cure For Aging and Disease

Follow Laughing Squid on Facebook, Twitter, and Subscribe by Email.

The post The Incredible Immortality of the Fresh-Water Hydra first appeared on Laughing Squid.

External Content
Source RSS or Atom Feed
Feed Location http://laughingsquid.com/feed/
Feed Title Laughing Squid
Feed Link https://laughingsquid.com/
Reply 0 comments