Lab-Grown, Pulsing Jellyfish is 'Genetically' a Rat; Lacks a Brain Too

Using heart tissue of a rat and some silicone, researchers at Caltech and Harvard were able to bio-engineer their way to creating a "moving" jelly fish.

Calling it "medusoid', the engineers behind the study shared that the finding would ultimately help in developing tools for biomedical technology. The findings are outlined in Nature Biotechnology.

Medusoid basically looks like a flat transparent flower with eight pedals that starts flapping when placed in an electric field. According, to the researchers it "swims just like the jellyfish."

"Morphologically, we've built a jellyfish. Functionally, we've built a jellyfish. Genetically, this thing is a rat," Kit Parker, co-author of the papers and a biophysicist at Harvard University, said according to Nature.com.

With medusoid, Parker hopes a deeper understanding of the fundamental laws of muscular pumps will arise. He credited the idea of creating a "bio-inspired pump" with a trip to the New England Aquarium where he saw jellyfish pumping their way through the water and compared the movement to the human heart.

"I saw the jellyfish display and it hit me like a thunderbolt. I thought: I know I can build that," Parker said.

He then teamed up with John Daibri, a bioengineering professor at CalTech and after heavily studying the jellyfish's propelling system, they imitated on building the artificial jellyfish.

Once the jellyfish was completed, it was introduced into an electricity-conducting-container filled with liquid that started discharging shocks ranging from zero to five volts to which medusoid started reacting.

Medusoid started swimming following synchronized contractions and the movement mimicked those of real jellyfish.

Now the team plans on further evolving the artificial jellyfish allowing it to perform other functions such as turning or moving towards a specific direction, and even growing a simple brain for it, reported the Harvard Gazette.

According to ScienceDaily.com, The team also stated that the research gave them a good perspective on how jellyfish could improve their movement, improvements that evolution may skipped for the creature:

"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."

To watch a video of the medusoid mimicking the jellyfish, click here.