By reversing its aging process when it gets sick or injured, Japan's tiny Turritopsis dohrnii jellyfish is one of the only known animals that has figured out how to defeat death. Motherboard goes to Japan to visit the only researcher in the world who is studying the microscopic animal to see if humans can eventually do the same.
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I graduated from Kyoto U. The Cambridge or MIT of Japan. . . and yes, the professors are mostly completely crazy like this. brings back memories.
I hope when you say crazy, you mean genuine. Cause this is just a mind blowing way of picturing what could be...
***** instead of 'crazy', i would say 'eccentric' - odd taste, weird super geeky nerdy stuff. Kyoto U is very elite, so students there have a reputation for being a bit odd. . . and dare I say I did not disappoint either. But the whole 'educate through jellyfish songs' with the hat and glass' and t-shirts and all that. . .yah. . .very Kyoto U.
Krezee? dad u cull him krezee? wah?
existentialvoid Interesting.
the world relied on crazy "unnormal" persons. Society should finally empower them instead of judging...
I was really hoping we'd get to hear "Die Hard Medusa".
yos
this guy is fucking awesome
so is his karaoke :D
This has got to be one of the coolest guys ever. A lot of Japanese people are just so likable.
They are soooo likeable if you have never dealt with them. I went to university in china, most of my classmates were Japanese. I also lived with a Japanese girlfriend for a year while studying in china. Just like all races the Japanese have a very intense and annoying side. The likeable side is the shallow side they show The public, it is often quite fake. That being said I have very deep respect for them and their culture. They are an intense people, they are not particularly happy go lucky. Despite being one of the least violent nations in the world they have a vicious war like nature. They are not particularly compassionate people, in fact compassion directly conflicts with much of their culture and values. Japanese essential believe, as a nation, in a few universal concepts, one is the superiority of the Japanese race, the second is in the importance of duty. This still holds true for modern Japanese. Like all of Asia Japan is changing, but like all of Asia the Japanese still consider themselves very unique in the world and hold on strongly the the values that make them "Japanese".
I love azian people they are peacefull not like the western or the middle east...
Sloops Wot Thank you for finally telling those weaboo's that if your Asian it doesn't make you some sort of god that everybody love's and your cool instantly
Dylan Darroch Very well said, i lived and worked there for a while, and frequently go back, like all races there are some amazing people, but the facade you see majority of the time is exactly that.
inertiaMS I lived in China for 7 years, in fact I am going back to live (from Canada) on Sunday!!! Anyhow I always found the Chinese to be more easy going and easier to deal with. If you haven't already I highly recommend you visit China. The Chinese can come off crude at times at first glance, but what I found living in China is that the country has some really kind, down to Earth people. Of course you cant paint the whole country with a single brush but I was really touched by many of the Chinese I had met while there and developed some truly close relationships. With the Japanese, unless it is a romantic / sexual relationship, it's very difficult to get close I have found.
Why are we not funding this ? We pay millions for idiots to run after a ball when guys like him could make a major breakthrough by expanding our lifespan drastically. Somehow no one seems to care. This dude deserves a big modern lab and a team to help him in his researches and of course, a karaoke room next to it.
First big pharmas need to figure out how to fuck everyone over by making this profitable. A lot of diseases can be cured, the thing is that privately owned top notch labs don't find it profitable to want to find a cure. They first need to create a market. If you're interested, there's this channel called The Young Turks (search Wolf Pack) they want to end big corporation money in politics, which could end corp. from being profit driven, make them unable to buy politicians by funding their campaigns, to bend rules in their favor, and force them to make medicine that actually works without people having to be coming back for more.
And for the record, they've already won over a state. If they get enough states they'll end this never ending sea of stupid decisions these idiots in congress and the senate and house are making
The problem is, would extending people's lives REALLY be a good thing? Our planet's population is already 3 times larger than it can support, and overpopulated countries are already making limits on the amount of children a family can have. We're also having a hard enough time feeding everyone in even the more civilized countries like america and China. If we extend people's lives, our problems would be amplified 10 fold. Nothing good would come of it, and the problems we already face would get worse. It would have to get to a point where there would have to be a regulation for a "maximum age" until termination, and children would be limited to chosen (or worse) raffled families, limiting the amount of new births. We need to fix our other problems before we worry about extended life. Either that or a planetary genocide to start over, leaving about 2 billion or 3 billion people (the supportable amount of people the planet can endure).
***** COuld you give me a source for that claim? AFAIK, the planet is perfectly capable of supporting our current population, it's just that we insist on eating the most resource intensive foods possible. If we were all vegetarians, there'd be no problem.
Because the world is already an overpopulated place.
humanity isnt ready for immortality there are too many fucked up things going on in the world like wealth inequality, war, etc
***** Or space exploration would greatly ramp up.
I agree
***** What do you mean dramatically? It would have to stop all together.
I think immortality would force the entire human race into a new paradigm. Force everyone to acknowledge that everything they thought about life before is gone, and that we're all in new territory. For this reason I think wealth in-equality, war, pollution, over-population, all of these things will be addressed scientifically because it takes the prospect of immortality for the human race (as a collective) to care about the long term situation on planet earth.
Immortality would force people to deal with problems like global warming and pollution which they would of previously left for their children and grand children to deal with. It would have an immediacy for them since they would be alive to suffer the consequences of using polluting fuels and wrecking the environment in other ways.
So much respect for him. Since 1976 he's had a passion for that animal and he's still studying it even though he's one of the few in the world doing so. What a legend
that jellyfish shirt he is wearing while singing karoke is fire af
its a whole mood ngl
*The Man That Holds a Key to Immortality
What a cool guy! Study all the Jellies!
Killing someone isn't a real punishment, making them immortal is.
Yes evading natures life cycle of aging and eventually dying for other people to live and for the planet to not be over populated and making food a harder to find thing and making everyone live in tiny houses do to the fact that we are way to many to be able to live freely and eat what ever we want and never die in the process. In this I think that death is beautiful and its a part of who we are as a living species and evading it to live forever would be like forgetting who we are and being disconnected from life itself and what it truly means. I feel that it would be a great discovery to mankind and to the universe in which we would be able to never die and in this we could make great progress in things we like to do like for example prodigies that can probably make great contributions to this world and maybe to the universe.
michell gomez I think after a few hundred years we would get bored and want to die.
techsta72 I don't think it would take nearly that long.
You all must not live a very interesting life then. lol
Your hubris is impressive if you think you are either clever enough to find things to do that make you want to keep living for more than a few hundred years or important enough for others to want you around that long.
Great...so I'm gonna live one life, then turn into an embryo or baby then forget all the shit I learned last time round? Fuck that shit.
Then you would need to study your past life. And nobody is going to want to look at a description of their entire life, that would take another life time. N you would have to try to regain feelings you had towards people
Am I the only one who noticed the empty bottle of whisky on his desk?
Japanese drik Sake, not Whisky
+Defcon One no, they are really fond of whisky. Usually high ball style they call it
Research purpose only(winky winky)..lol
Before you judge, remember, Isaac Newton was a mystic
good point, but come on when he dressed as a jellyfish and started to sing karaoke jellyfish songs he made..... he lost a little bit of cred. for his studies xD
KcKreicar True
KcKreicar to understand a jellyfish, one has to be a jellyfish lol
No I thought it was pretty cool that he has a fun side. Not just all about studying. Lol
His work didnt lose any credibility in my eyes, i thought all japanese people are weird like that?
He reminds me of a sort of Japanese mad scientist with all the quirks you would expect from a slightly insane person. This reminds me of the Chinese Emperor that was obsessed with immortality and the pursuit thereof.
This man is truly "one with the jellyfish".
I think that even if he unlocks the genetics that make this possible, it won't be the kind of immortality people want. Basically you would turn back into a infant, lose almost all of your memories and skills and start life over again. It wouldn't be much different from dying, especially if you believe in reincarnation.
Immortality to some is a curse, to others, it is a blessing, and a lot of people seem to forget that immortality means that you can't die by mortal means, that doesn't mean that you CAN'T die by IMMORTAL means.
+Luna Dusk Yeah but not if you were a vampire. xD
I was starting to slack in my goal of becoming a biomedical engineer but seeing this guy kind of ignited a passion back in me (even though I'm not really into the idea of humanity possibly gaining immortallity).
He's so passionate about his work! Unbelievable. We should put some money into these researches, this may be working in humans as well.
Oh man, I was obsessed with jellyfish when I was a kid. I use to go to the aquarium every chance I got, and spend hours looking at the different kinds of jellies.
I got sung by one, so i beat him up. :D
How do I get those T-Shirts, I'm seriously. Super want the T-shirt.
yos bros fos gos yos
that guy is just so insanely likeable and sympathic, its incredible
This man is amazing. This is one of those things that make you so happy in how strange yet how simple it is
That jumper he has on looks like it would be warm as fuck
He is the real life Princess Jellyfish.
omg yesss
Thank you for putting that effort, u got my SUpport
nice to see someone that is really passionate about something and wants to improve the world in some way!
fascinating
Hello, I'm a scientist. I study the evolution of life and immortality. During my free time I pretend to be a jellyfish while I sing karaoke songs. Welcome to Japan.
you are livin the life man!
Hello, I'm a scientist studying immortal jellyfish, my real goal is to find out how to turn these critters into a spice for shark fin soup and then we will hunt the world's ocean's for every last one of these fuckers and make them go extinct...so much for immortal...HAHAHA. Nothing immortal when it comes to asian appetite, not sharks, not rhinos, not blue mountain coffee..etc....etc...
Vice and motherboard are doing a great job
If there's but one noble reason why someone should live forever, and one person who deserves it, it's this man. A immortality seeker, karaoke singer/songwriter Japanese marine biologist.
Even he could find a way to make this possible with humans, only the 1% would get it. Only the richest people could afford it.
Yep.
Rich people would probably be clever. And it would probably be better for the human race
That logic makes no sense. So you're saying people like paris hilton are smart because they are rich? NO, today's generation of rich are dumb, spoiled brats who inherited their wealth from mommy and daddy and never even pick up anything as heavy as a book.
i found the karaoke part a bit disturbing... guy probably has a giant jelly fish in a hidden tank that he feeds body parts to.
nos
meenie
This guy seems chill, I'm glad he's doing something he loves.
amazing movie! thank you for uploading it!
the Japanese I swear to god man they are the true race that want to help the whole world. I want to go there so badly.
Why do you say that?
Except chinese. and black peeps. and white people too. probably hispanics. hell they probably hate everyone.
Obviously you've never seen the movie cave
Uhhhh, Japanese people kill dolphins and whales in massive numbers. Japanese people let millions of gallons of radioactive water leak into the ocean!
StayAtHomeDad But they want to further human evolution. Because we are the only thing important to us.
I hope he succeeds! I love the jellyfish song :)
yos bros yos cools bos
Amazing. He puts all his time and energy in researching.
I thought this guy was normal until he fucking whipped out the jellyfish hat.
Death is good if you look at things through a race, and not a personal view.
so can you keep them as a pet and it live forever?
Uhm..
you'll die before it will, so you'll only have him until you pass away
i think its kinda hard to successfully keep them alive in captivity, also they're only biologically immortal. A lot can go wrong.
what a wise and admirable man what is the song at the very end that starts around 11:10? it sounds like some sort of string instrument, and then also a flute and a drum?
This man is life goals. Never change dude.
this is why I only eat Jello
whyos
what if i accidentaly swallowed polyp....
at around the 5 min mark he says they can't regenerate in the stomach of other animals. So they're edible (I guess)
ahaha! sorry, i miss the part
It'd be nasty if it regenerates in your stomach and it comes out from you know where. Blech!!
when i search this up it isnt the first video anymore, took me a minute to find this one and not someone else's retelling of it
I find it so incredible when a person dedicates their whole life to something they are passionate about. This guy is the best :)
I wonder if you just put a whole bunch of those in a blender and drank a jelly shake every day if you would live forever
Since they are not technically fish.. is that vegan?
yos bros
It will be a Miracle if the government doesn't shut him down first......
Why would the govt. shut him down?
Tom Davis they shut down many new inventors, envisionist...etc, from bettering the world, the jelly fish could hold the key to immortality .. or so he says, but the people who created free energy...you dont see them and or their patens of proof .. they all dissapear,,,get killed, or get rejected by the big wigs that control the world IE ..Rockafella oil... etc.
JL FC FIRE MC Alright, might be time to take that tin foil hat off. Brain's getting a bit cooked under there.
-_-
Why do you say that tom? You sound like a sheep. As if the govt would do anything that makes them lose money an everyone save money
what a nice, humble person
@10:50"If everyone became immortal and studied these things, the world would be a better place and we would fully appreciate the wonders of life." Truth.
ONE! TWO! SREEEE!
nos bros yos nos coos bros
memeie
sounds more like asexual reproduction than reverse aging
All those years he's been lying to us ! Thank you, brilliant mind of the future.
Great video, and that guy, what a character!
He reminds me of the guy from the Suicide Forest in Japan video... a gentle, caring soul who takes pride in the spirituality of life - truly fascinating to listen to.
LMAO! This guy is so weird. "Die hard medusa" One of nine songs he himself wrote LOL I personally would never want to be immortal. Life is a bitch, and it's hard and annoying enough already, so why would I want to live more than I need to? No thanks...
And what the fuck is it that you're doing to contribute to society?
***** My mum died a month ago.
The desire for immortality is exceptionally unwise. Assuming one would never die, one would exist after the destruction of the earth, and the solar system, after the sun dies out or goes super nova or whatever. Life is suffering, and the stronger one strives for the "pleasures" of life, the stronger one's greed for life, the more one suffers. We can see this in many of the wealthiest most famous people, those who thirst for wealth and thirst for fame… often end up suffering. Not to say we should all crawl up and die either, but you are correct, immorality would be a curse on many many levels.
Dylan Darroch ***** Omg, just let the japanese fellow do hes research... And pluss, how could we age again? Tell me how we would go back to our moms uterus and start over as a fetus.
Dylan Darroch immortality to me means you don't die unless basically executed. so when the earth dries up and what not because of the sun becoming a red giant I'm pretty sure you're going to die. Besides the researcher is right. if our intellectuals were immortal the world would be a better place.
overpopulated contry and he search for immortality... That is going to be just great...
Define overpopulated.
www.thefreedictionary.com/overpopulation
***** yes by -0.16% for 2012-2013. It is, of course, insignificant... They are still overpopulated But the overpopulation problem is world wide anyway. If people can't die naturally, it would be a catastrophy, don't you think?
***** indeed
Well if humans do be come imortl the the world will slowly over populate And since our earth is limited we whold die And die because we whold run out of resources And imotalty Well keep us alive on a over crowned planet
I like that he's a genuinely nice guy.
Once he got to the karaoke, I lost a little faith that this guy actually knows what the fuck he's doing.
mds1978 He sounds a lot like one of my teachers in High School. The guy looked a lot like Hitler he would all ways get remarks about it in class by some students, He loved WW2 history, He was a Science teacher who did a lot of experiment's and he manage to keep it interesting.
Lmfao same here. But then I was like, nah, this guys goin places
He knows what is doing.
I would hate for humans to have this ability. We're meant to die; we shouldn't change that.
we are what we want to be if you wan to have yor life end so be it. not me . dont have my life end cause thats what you think it shold be dont force your will aupone . if i cant live forever then there no point in enything
***** The only reason there is a point in anything we do is because we have limited time to do it.
MIddleJaman That is a load of bullshit.
***** Cling, cling to life and fear death. Continue to suffer from your fears, trapped in an illusion of constant worries. As long as you are attached to your fear of death, and your ideas of immortality, you will never truly live. You will be stuck in this illusion, and it will consume you. Your fears and desires are nothing new. Many human minds suffer similarly, and have so for thousands of years. Buddhism has known about this inevitability, and uses meditation as a gateway to reality, to living life without attachment to these worries. Convincing yourself your fear belongs is a denial of reality. Any argument you make in your mind for, or against, death is a step further into illusion. The only way out is to stop. Stop your reasoning. Stop blinding yourself with your ideas of the future. At first thinking about death sparked up a curiosity. In your mind you wondered, how can I end up living longer? Digital immortality, and how it can work became an idea for you. Your knowledge and experience contributed to this idea. Eventually, this idea became close, you grew attached to it. By now you probably feel dry when thinking about death. No more idea, no more sparks. It all comes quick, the thought and then the emotion. Nothing but a temporary mental cloud. Once it passes, you're still here, and nothing's changed. However, you're still attached to your fear, and it limits you. It holds you back from doing things you would have done differently, from freedom.
Rhaegar Targaryen Yeah it's better to sit and do nothing rather than trying right ? I mean it's supid to even think we could use that jellyfish to help us understand regeneration processes to help us cure damaged limbs, organs, tissues etc. It's even dumber to think we could increase our lifespan by studying how aging works and how we could maybe reverse it or at least slow it. Idiot. If you want to grow old to the point you can't even walk anymore and pee/shit on yourself and then die because your heart stopped working or because your body is so old that it can't create new cells, fine. While you endure that, i'll come near your deathbed and we'll see if you still think that doing nothing was the best thing and that you're happy to live as a living corpse.
I have a feeling that I'd get along well with this guy. Turritopsis dohrnii is incredibly interesting.
Very interesting, glad to have this species brought to my attention
everything was ok... until he started to sing.
Thats why the are dead all over the beach lol
They are different types of Jellyfish you moron.
fucking idiot
Someone get this DUMB BITCH out of here. This is what DUMB BITCHES GET when they comment before watching the actual video. Damn it DUMB BITCH.
dumb BITCH
I did assholes, It was joke dudes and maybe just maybe they will come for him with the white coat and scoop him up after karokee number. Might take you all away haha
thank you ♡ ..totally fascinated by Jellyfish
"looks at this cute newborn, let's mash up its insides and see how long it takes to regenerate."
I liked your karaoke and costume very much. It made this idea more fun. And there are soo many wonders of the world. Thank you for sharing :)
Cool doc,MB. Respect from a Portuguese downhiller emigrant in Holland to Mr. Shin Kubota for his work and dedication because one thing is certain,we never know when are we going to make an important discovery for the mankind unless we try it, science hides in every little thing that surrounds us in this planet...
Awesome guy, you can just tell he is so passionate about everything he studies. I'd like to have seen some more direct scientific explanation/research in this though
The jelly fish t-shirt is really cool! I want one
so yos
So what progress has he really made? He seems to understand how the jellyfish do this trick, but how the hell would a human be able to replicate it? I shudder to imagine myself reaching eighty years old, only to split into five or six tiny clones of myself as infants or small children with no recollection of the past life. That's a nightmare-fuel breed of imagery.
This guy is on a whole different level. brilliant mind
I actually would purchases one of his shirts with the drawing on it. Interesting video i enjoyed watching this.
Subtitles on top of subtitles. Great.
Give that guy a proper laboratory!! Let him research full time! he has passion!
wow, this is really too amazing i wanna study in Japan in my next things to do. Kind Regards an avid admirer
Fascinating Creatures.
he said no one else is studying these...for real? this sounds so cool! i would go to grad school in a second if i got to do research on these.
Whats the song called that starts playing in the background at 6:10 ??
What a legend! Great attitude to life.
Both the researcher and the jellyfish are too cute. MORE SCIENCE!!!
@Theo bro the possibilities for our planet are endless. You can't say there won't be a change no matter how gritty or violent something will change for the better.
I would really like to get the song name when the credits roll. It's really chill and suiting for this documentary! So if anyone could tell me the name or link me to it, then I would be most grateful.
Oh oh me too! ;) xD
Mauricio Ramirez Sadly, this is not the ending credit song. But thanks for trying.
The song I would like to know the name of starts @11:00 in this video.
+Marijuana,?"?"? K:-)jn-qmmkqkzpkdkK? .:-) ©@ 1od0))£0£0('('(+'+'+ .. Lllp28ii
Ario Budi Prayogo I'm sorry but I cannot understand what you wrote. :(
This guy got a great job as he's doing about nothing except observing.
Got It!! Thank you Shin Kubota!
thank you...
I want a t-shirt from this guy, and I hope I can find "The Immortal Jellyfish Festival Song" on itunes
That was awesome.
it's funny how the song at some parts sound nice haha
im in love with this dude
I love the videos, hate reading CC. I'll do Voiceover for you freely, I can do many noises, pitches, etc. I just want to be able to listen in my car.
I think its amazing!
Definitely on to something here:) where can I get a jelly fish shirt like his?
Oh my god I love him!
Our concept of mortality are limited in perspective by our introspective frame of reference. Perhaps this jellyfish, upon cloning itself actually extends it’s awareness as a network.
I absolutely adhere to all of his views.
he's adorable.
There's one scientifically dedicated man. We need a billion more like him.