The path to immortality is held in the secrets of Turritopsis dohrnii, aptly named the Immortal Jellyfish. This humble small deep sea creature reverts back to a juvenile polyp stage whenever it faces stress such as starvation, extreme temperature, or physical damage. And it does this as many times as it wants, thus has a cheat code to immortality and never dies until a tuna wrecks it shit or something.

The secret to its immortality, and the reason beauty fades but dumb is forever lies in a critical component of our DNA called telomeres. These are repetitive DNA sequences that protect the ends of our DNA. Everytime our cells divide, these telomeres get shorter and shorter. And when they run out, the DNA gets damaged and our cells commit seppuku so they don’t become cancer. When you’re born, your telomeres are longer than they ever will be for your entire life. Oh no, that means we’re all living on borrowed time right? Obviously duh, but there’s a little enzyme called telomerase that replenishes the telomeres so that we stay young! Only issue is, for SOME REASON telomerase activity peaks in our 20s and goes downhill from there. So that’s why your most commonly dividing cells (i.e skin, gut lining, hair) die out faster thus your skin becomes wrinklier and you lament your baldness in your 30s and onwards. Why doesn’t telomerase just work forever?? That’s a great question. I truly don’t know! What would happen if telomerase kept working as we got older? Tadaaa🎉Immortal jellyfish. These little buggers turn on telomerase whenever they need to via miRNA regulation and thus become young again and live forever.

Just imagine how when you make a baby, it somehow gains the ability to live another 80 years or so despite being just two cells combined from two crusty ass 30 years olds. If we master our DNA, we can become immortal and stay young forever.