Twelve-Headed Jellyfish
Yeah, twelve-headed jellyfish. Mari said it.
Jellyfish with up to a dozen heads have been created in the laboratory by carefully monkeying with a few genes.
The genetic experiments could shed light on how natural colonies of other multi-headed organisms first originated, including some that build coral reefs.
Researchers targeted so-called Cnox genes, which help control how the bodies of jellyfish are laid out as their embryos develop. These genes are closely related to Hox genes, which play a similar role in humans.
Here’s a pic of one of the multi-headed jellyfish. This one only has two heads (the two bright peach things in the center).
WEIRD! And cool. But mostly weird.
What do you think?
Interesting Tidbit, Science 
1 August 2007, 17:15
jellyfish, Offbeat, Science, twelve-headed jellyfish, Weird StuffYou can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Definitely weird and definitely cool. And it reminds me of one website I just stumbled upon. It had a list of weird sea creatures and they were, well, reeeally weird. But cool
Emz laughs at use of ‘carefully monkeying with a few genes’ - because, well, you can’t monkey with a gene!
Non non non! Let’s not be silly!
Emz thinks this is very weird. Too weird. She fails to see the ‘coolness’ except having 12 brains would mean ultra-cleverness. Which would be very very cool…
*laughs*
This… doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Like, biologically, it doesn’t make sense. It appears to be two things, growing out of the jellyfish, as if they were misplaced tentacles. Considering how jellyfish eat, etc. I don’t see how they could be considered functional heads. I could be misinterpreting the picture though.
But there is the problem that jellyfish don’t even have actual heads. =/
I think its disgusting! Ewwww
@Kaisa
Mari thinks all sea critters are weird-looking.
Also, tasty.
@Emz
XD Emz is extremely silly.
Mari just loves “freakshow” news. Things with two heads, inmates that want to tell a joke before they die, and regrowing missing fingers…
@Josh
Well, you know there is the original article you could read…
Mari would speculate that they’re just referred to as heads for the benefit of people who do not study jellyfish.
@Christine
A lot of people do. Mari’s mum was grossed out.
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