{"id":1813,"date":"2026-06-22T11:24:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T10:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/marine-creature-with-severed-tissues-that-wont-die-intrigues-scientists\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T11:24:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T10:24:48","slug":"marine-creature-with-severed-tissues-that-wont-die-intrigues-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/marine-creature-with-severed-tissues-that-wont-die-intrigues-scientists\/","title":{"rendered":"Marine Creature with Severed Tissues That Won&#8217;t Die Intrigues Scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>In studying an unusual species of sea cucumber, scientists have discovered that its tissues stayed alive for nearly three years after removal, with potential implications for regenerating their human counterparts.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>An Extraordinary Sea Cucumber<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Observed in the frigid waters of the Arctic and North Atlantic, the scarlet psolus (<em>Psolus fabricii<\/em>) plays a pivotal ecological role by recycling organic matter that sinks to the ocean floor. Like sea urchins and starfish, it belongs to the phylum Echinodermata, whose members are often noted for their regenerative abilities and limited cellular aging.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">But how did these giant isopods survive five years without eating?<\/span><\/section>\n<p>While researchers had assumed that tissues detached from the animal would eventually break down and die, a team noticed that weeks after detachment from <em>P. fabricii<\/em>, a fragment of its tubular foot continued to develop. Long-term experiments conducted on three specimens have recently shed light on the mechanisms at work.<\/p>\n<p>\u00ab<em>We observe growth and cellular diversification quite astonishing, literally years after the tissue was sampled<\/em>\u00bb, explains Rachel Sipler, lead author of the new study, published in the journal <em>Science Advances<\/em>. \u00ab<em>We know that some lizards can regrow their tails. In this case, one wonders if the tail could regrow a new lizard<\/em>.\u00bb<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"730\" height=\"247\" src=\"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782123886_756_Marine-Creature-with-Severed-Tissues-That-Wont-Die-Intrigues-Scientists.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1010197\"  ><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Potential Implications for Human Tissue Regeneration<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>These findings extend decades of work on so-called \u201cimmortal\u201d cell lines, which can be cultured indefinitely in the laboratory. While, up to now, maintaining tissues alive typically required complex conditions, the tissue organization, immune activity, and development of samples taken from <em>P. fabricii<\/em> indicate that its cells have directly absorbed amino acids dissolved in seawater.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">On the ISS, the leakage of the Zvezda module forces engineers to abandon part of the Russian segment<\/span><\/section>\n<p>\u00ab<em>This is probably the least \u2018clean\u2019 material we could use for experimental purposes<\/em>\u00bb, notes Sipler. \u00ab<em>That environment rich in bacteria and organic matter has actually nourished the cells and allowed the tissue to heal and develop<\/em>.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>According to the researchers, this extraordinary resilience echoes what is observed in organisms such as axolotls or the jellyfish <em>Turritopsis dohrnii<\/em>, and could help open new avenues for the <strong>regeneration<\/strong> and healing of human tissues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1143,1785,869,252,294,1783,1784,508],"class_list":["post-1813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-creature","tag-die","tag-intrigues","tag-marine","tag-scientists","tag-severed","tag-tissues","tag-wont","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1815,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions\/1815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}