Artifical jellyfish created in lab from rat cells

[Swede]

The tentacled artificial creature, made from silicon, has been dubbed "Medusoid" because of its resemblance to the snake-haired character from Greek mythology whose gaze turned people to stone.

It is able to mimic the swimming movement of a jellyfish thanks to muscle cells from rat hearts which were implanted onto its silicon frame and grown into a pattern similar to the muscles of a real jellyfish.

By applying an electric current to a container of conducting liquid, the scientists demonstrated they could "shock" the muscles into contracting so that it began to move through the water.

The "reverse-engineering" project by researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University was published on the website of the Nature Biotechnology journal

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9418648/Artifical-jellyfish-created-in-lab-from-rat-cells.html

[FLyellowdog]

1. And we need more jellyfish because......? nt

[Neoma]

15. Well, they're more yummy than plastic bags.

[LiberalEsto]

2. OMG, it's...it's...

Frankenjellyfish!

[pscot]

3. Wouldn't tuna or salmon

make more sense?

[kestrel91316]

4. Well now THAT'S incredibly useful.

[Scootaloo]

5. Sometimes, you just have to see if you can do cool stuff with science

[Confusious]

6. Rome wasn't built in a day

neither were cars, boats, planes, buildings, or pretty much anything else you can think of that man makes.

Each and every one of them took someone testing over and over again to make sure they did things right so it would right.

[Occulus]

9. Underwater cameras that can swim spring to mind.

It would make one hell of a study device.

[Politicalboi]

7. Can they eat oil?

BP could hire them.

[demguy_5692]

8. not sure how this is really any relevant

Still, very interesting nonetheless.

[Posteritatis]

11. A proof of concept for engineering different tissues/functions from scratch isn't relevant?

Really people. I know DU tends to be pretty anti-science, but the reactions in this thread are boggling me.

[Motown_Johnny]

12. +1

If you could wrap a membrane of that stuff around a human heart and attach a pacemaker......

[d_r]

10. wow

they just made a science fiction robot-biological cyborg thing and people are "ho-hum."

eta -

" "I'm pleasantly surprised at how close we are getting to matching the natural biological performance, but also that we're seeing ways in which we can probably improve on that natural performance. The process of evolution missed a lot of good solutions."


That's like straight out of a horror movie right there

[Curmudgeoness]

13. This is just plain creepy

and fascinating. I am not sure how I feel about this yet. I know we have to do some bizarre experiments to get to a result that has relevance, but a silicone jellyfish that moves with rat cells. I have to think about this.

[chknltl]

14. WOW very cool.

The usefulness of this science will someday pay off dividends I suspect. Medical uses like artificial hearts, Upthread it was suggested mounting a camera on it for underwater exploration, (Lake Vostok or perhaps the network of waterfalls caves on the Yucatan). We are only limited by our imagination with this science. Hopefully it will never be used for weapon dispersal....um... each a sketch that notion, it is likely under consideration as a method to deploy anti-personnel underwater mines that detect and swarm towards enemy divers!