What ‘Immortal’ Jellyfish and Famously Old Tortoises Tell Us about Aging

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

Animals’ lifespans can be far shorter or much longer than those of humans. Scientists are researching creatures such as “immortal” jellyfish and long-lived tortoises and digging deep into genetic codes to figure out why animals age—and what we can do to improve longevity in humans. João Pedro de Magalhães, chair of molecular biogerontology at the University of Birmingham in England, lays out the state of aging science. Recommended reading: Follow de Magalhães’s lab: https://rejuvenomicslab.com/ See our animal lifespan infographic: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-some-animals-live-for-only-days-and-others-live-for-thousands-of-years/ E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Here's the truth about AI.
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0:26.5	Visit ServiceNow.com slash UK slash AI for people. For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman. In the animal kingdom, lifespans can stretch from mere hours to entire centuries, but that's just the start.
1:07.5	Some creatures deteriorate so slowly that we've never actually caught them dying of old age.
1:13.4	Others don't seem to age at all.
1:15.8	And some can apparently reset their biological clocks and bounce back to infancy to start all over again.
1:22.6	Plenty of humans would like to figure out how that works and potentially harness the ability for our own use.
1:28.3	But science has a long way to go.
1:30.5	The truth is that we barely understand why or how we age in the first place, let alone how we might stop it.
1:37.8	My guest today is Jean-Pedro Magaliz.
1:40.7	He's the chair of molecular biogerontology at the University of Birmingham in England,
1:45.8	and he's here to tell us all about the nascent science of aging.
1:50.3	Thank you so much for coming on to chat today.
1:52.9	My pleasure. Thank you for the invitation.
1:54.9	So I'm sure that all of our listeners know that different species have different lifespans,
1:59.3	but could you start by giving us a sense of
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