After it reaches sexual maturity, it can go through a process of transdifferentiation and transform mature cells back to young cells (polyps). Here’s one way to explain it:

Cell transdifferentiation is when the jellyfish “alters the differentiated state of the cell and transforms it into a new cell. In this process the medusa of the immortal jellyfish is transformed into the polyps of a new polyp colony. First, the umbrella reverts itself and then the tentacles and mesoglea get resorbed. The reverted medusa then attaches itself to the substrate by the end that had been at the opposite end of the umbrella and starts giving rise to new polyps to form the new colony. Theoretically, this process can go on infinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal. (Wikipedia)

This little creature is about 4.5 mm in diameter (.18 inches). The red in the center is its large stomach. Young jellies have about 8 tentacles while adults have 80-90 tentacles. The picture shown below is actually a Turritopsis rubra from New Zealand which is closely related. They are very similar, but it’s not known if  T. rubra can transform back into polyps.

The jelly originated in the Carribbean but now it’s found all over the world in temperate to tropical oceans. Because it’s basically immortal (if it doesn’t succumb to predation, etc), the numbers are spiking.  They think it’s spreading by ships discharging ballast water in ports.

A bit more about their immortality:

Careful laboratory experiments have revealed that all stages of the medusae, from newly released to fully mature individuals, can transform back into polyps.[3] The transforming medusa is characterized first by deterioration of the bell and tentacles, with subsequent growth of a perisarc sheet (see hydroid) and stolons, and finally feeding polyps. Polyps further multiply by growing additional stolons, branches and then polyps, to form colonial hydroids. This ability to reverse the life cycle (in response to adverse conditions) is probably unique in the animal kingdom, and allows the jellyfish to bypass death, rendering Turritopsis nutricula potentially biologically immortal. Studies in the laboratory showed that 100% of specimens could revert to the polyp stage, but so far the process has not been observed in nature, in part because the process is quite rapid and field observations at the right moment in time are unlikely.[3] In spite of this remarkable ability, most Turritopsis medusae are likely to fall victim to the general hazards of life as plankton, including being eaten by other animals, or succumbing to disease.

The hydra is also being studied because it also has the ability to regenerate. It can regenerate tissue when injured or severed and doesn’t age.

Fascinating! The natural world is so wonderful and full of mystery. Maybe someday this beautiful little creature will help us all live longer, but if not, it’s just at least exciting to know that it exists and thrives in our fantastic world.

Thanks to The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe for telling me about T. nutricula.

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Pareidolia: a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant.

In psychology, the Rorschach test is a series of images used to invoke pareidolia to delve into the psyche of the patient. In religion and superstition, a vague stimulus is believed to be divinely sent. Here is a news story of Mary in bird shit. Notice how the people react to a random stimulus.

No matter how much I look at this picture, it looks like a face. The sink looks a bit shocked or frightened.

Carl Sagan hypothesized that detecting faces is a hard wired evolutionary advantage. This allows people to use only minimal details to recognize faces from a distance and in poor visibility but can also lead them to interpret random images or patterns of light and shade as being faces.

In 2009 a study was done to show that objects incidentally perceived as faces evoke an early (165 ms) activation in the ventral fusiform cortex, at a time and location similar to that evoked by faces, whereas other common objects do not evoke such activation. This activation is similar to a slightly earlier peak at 130 ms seen for images of real faces. The authors suggest that face perception evoked by face-like objects is a relatively early process, and not a late cognitive reinterpretation phenomenon.

Which would explain why everyone sees the following simple line drawing as a face:

This one, is of course, totally real. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a holy visage mighty to behold! May you be touched by his Noodly Appendage!

Here’s a strange 6-legged sky pig.

This is the famous grilled cheese toast image. If you ask me, the face in there looks more like an actress from the 40′s than a religious icon.

And one more, for fun.

So, it’s nothing supernatural. It’s just the way our brains work to fill in information and make sense of the world as fast as we can.

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I’m embarrassed to say there are a few faces there I can’t name. Anyone want to list everyone from left to right? I’d rather ask for your help than get it wrong. (click the image for full size. Sorry, I don’t know the artist!)

Here is a video of Christopher Hitchens answering a question from an audience member at a debate. Why we should fight religion. (6 minutes)

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Why am I talking about nanotech on Darwin’s birthday? If you think about it, without evolution, we wouldn’t be able to manipulate our world so deftly and with such finesse. About 195,000 years ago homo sapiens first appeared in the fossil record. We started leaving Africa about 70,000 years ago, and migrated as far as the Americas 14,500 years ago.

A mere 10,000 years ago, we were mostly hunter-gatherers in nomadic groups. The first proto-states were developed only 6,000 years ago. Think of that! Look how far we’ve come in such a short time!

Think of how we lived just 100 years ago in 1910.

• By 1910 many suburban homes were wired up with power and new electronic gadgets.
• Vacuum cleaners and washing machines had just become commercially available, though still expensive for middle class folks
• The telephone was new, and millions of American homes were connected by manual switchboard
• People relied on the paper for their news, but radio technology was in its infancy
• The age of the airship was in full swing. Only 7 years previously, the Wright brothers had flown at Kitty Hawk
• Henry Ford introduced the Model T 2 years before and sold about 10,000 of them this year
• Advances in the use of gases meant the first electric refrigerators and air conditioning units.
• Neon lighting was debuted in Paris
• Inventions included: escalators, teabags, cellophane, instant coffee and disposable razor blades
• Women still had another 3 years of corsets

Things they didn’t have in 1910:

• stainless steel
• zippers
• the modern bra
• the modern band-aid
• the pop-up toaster
• sliced bread

But let’s get back to Liquid Glass. You spray it on. It’s transparent, non-toxic and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat and bacterial infections. It’s flexible and breathable, which means it can be used on all kinds of products.

The liquid glass spray (technically termed “SiO2 ultra-thin layering”) consists of almost pure silicon dioxide (silica, the normal compound in glass) extracted from quartz sand. Water or ethanol is added, depending on the type of surface to be coated. There are no additives, and the nano-scale glass coating bonds to the surface because of the quantum forces involved. According to the manufacturers, liquid glass has a long-lasting antibacterial effect because microbes landing on the surface cannot divide or replicate easily.

Liquid glass was invented in Turkey and the patent is held by Nanopool, a family-owned German company. Research on the product was carried out at the Saarbrücken Institute for New Materials. Nanopool is already in negotiations in the UK with a number of companies and with the National Health Service, with a view to its widespread adoption.

The liquid glass spray produces a water-resistant coating only around 100 nanometers (15-30 molecules) thick. On this nanoscale the glass is highly flexible and breathable. The coating is environmentally harmless and non-toxic, and easy to clean using only water or a simple wipe with a damp cloth. It repels bacteria, water and dirt, and resists heat, UV light and even acids. UK project manager with Nanopool, Neil McClelland, said soon almost every product you purchase will be coated with liquid glass.

Food processing companies in Germany have already carried out trials of the spray, and found sterile surfaces that usually needed to be cleaned with strong bleach to keep them sterile needed only a hot water rinse if they were coated with liquid glass. The levels of sterility were higher for the glass-coated surfaces, and the surfaces remained sterile for months.

Other organizations, such as a train company and a hotel chain in the UK, and a hamburger chain in Germany, are also testing liquid glass for a wide range of uses. A year-long trial of the spray in a Lancashire hospital also produced “very promising” results for a range of applications including coatings for equipment, medical implants, catheters, sutures and bandages. The war graves association in the UK is investigating using the spray to treat stone monuments and grave stones, since trials have shown the coating protects against weathering and graffiti. Trials in Turkey are testing the product on monuments such as the Ataturk Mausoleum in Ankara.

The liquid glass coating is breathable, which means it can be used on plants and seeds. Trials in vineyards have found spraying vines increases their resistance to fungal diseases, while other tests have shown sprayed seeds germinate and grow faster than untreated seeds, and coated wood is not attacked by termites. Other vineyard applications include coating corks with liquid glass to prevent “corking” and contamination of wine. The spray cannot be seen by the naked eye, which means it could also be used to treat clothing and other materials to make them stain-resistant. McClelland said you can “pour a bottle of wine over an expensive silk shirt and it will come right off”.

In the home, spray-on glass would eliminate the need for scrubbing and make most cleaning products obsolete. Since it is available in both water-based and alcohol-based solutions, it can be used in the oven, in bathrooms, tiles, sinks, and almost every other surface in the home, and one spray is said to last a year.

Liquid glass spray is perhaps the most important nanotechnology product to emerge to date. It will be available in DIY stores in Britain soon, with prices starting at around £5 ($8 US). Other outlets, such as many supermarkets, may be unwilling to stock the products because they make enormous profits from cleaning products that need to be replaced regularly, and liquid glass would make virtually all of them obsolete.

Thanks, PhysOrg

A bit more info on it:

The flexible and breathable glass coating is approximately 100 nanometres thick (500 times thinner than a human hair), and so it is completely undetectable. It is food safe, environmentally friendly (winner of the Green Apple Award) and it can be applied to almost any surface within seconds . When coated, all surfaces become easy to clean and anti-microbially protected (Winner of the NHS Smart Solutions Award ). Houses, cars, ovens, wedding dress or any other protected surface become stain resistant and can be easily cleaned with water ; no cleaning chemicals are required. Amazingly a 30 second DIY application to a sink unit will last for a year or years, depending on how often it is used. But it does not stop there – the coatings are now also recognised as being suitable for agricultural and in-vivo application. Vines coated with SiO2 don’t suffer from mildew, and coated seeds grow more rapidly without the need for anti-fungal chemicals. This will result in farmers in enjoying massively increased yields.

…The really clever part is that there are no added nano-particles , resins or additives- the coatings form and bond due to quantum forces. Our research informs us that in all probability, we offer the most versatile coating in the world. This technology is now available for domestic use in Germany. Full scale retail availability in the UK will commence in early 2010.

Nanopool

• Evolution Information
• 100 Years Ago Information

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I had my doubts about this; I got an offer from ASPEX corporation to let people get free scanning electron micrographs of just about anything. They make a desktop SEM (Scanning Electron Micrograph), and all you have to do is fill out a form and mail it in with your sample of a dead bug or a microchip or bacon, and presto, within a few weeks they’ll have it scanned in and the image available on their website.

I asked them if they knew how many readers I have, and they said no problem, they can handle it.

Huh.

Well, you heard them. Scavenge your trash cans, dig into your local sources of vermin and oddments, and send them in. I’m thinking this could be really fun for any school teachers out there — you could have the whole class looking for interesting specimens to zoom in on. You can see their current galleries for ideas.

Follow the instructions here to get your dead bugs and rotten food scanned for free.

If you do send something in to get scanned be sure to note that you found them via PZ; and be sure to come back here and share your scan with the rest of us!

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Besides this seeming like a fairly unique idea, the creators have made the two videos so that you can watch them separately, or at the same time.

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Well, now I have a new reason to swear profusely if I get hurt. A study was released last week in the journal NeuroReport about Swearing Actually Increasing Pain Tolerance. Over 60 volunteers put their hands in ice cold water and kept it there as long as they could. They were to say either a neutral word or a swear word of their choice. When saying the swear word, they endured an average of 40 more seconds of the ice water and reported less pain.

Still no one is exactly sure how swearing has such physical effects on the body, but it’s speculated that the brain circuitry linked to emotion is involved. But earlier studies have shown that regular language relies on the outer bit on the left hemisphere of the brain, while swearing relies on evolutionarily ancient structures buried deep inside the right half.

Also noteworthy was that the heart rate of the volunteers rose when they swore, which the researchers say suggests that the amygdala was activated. The amygdala is a group of neurons in the brain that can trigger a fight or flight response in which our heart rate climbs and we become less sensitive to pain.

A psychologist who has studied profanities for the past 35 years says about swearing, “It allows us to vent or express anger, joy, surprise, happiness. It’s like the horn on your car, you can do a lot of things with that, it’s built into you.”

Just be careful to not go to the extreme and hotline into your brain’s emotional system in a situation like road rage, where you escalate to physical violence. (of course)

There’s one catch though. The more we swear, the less emotionally potent the words become. And without emotion, all that’s left is the swear word itself, which is unlikely to soothe your pain.

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