Comic book fans should be familiar with the science behind how characters like Logan/Wolverine and Heroes’s Claire are able to live forever. What they probably don’t know is that there is a species of jellyfish out there that can do the same thing.

If you follow the links from Yahoo all the way to The UK Times ONLINE, you’ll find the same thing being repeated over and over again. This particular breed of jellyfish known in the science world as Turritopsis Nutricula can regenerate its cells! But that’s not all! When it does regenerate its cells, it also reverts them to a pervious life stage. This means that every time a cell dies, a younger one takes its place.

Scientists have yet to find a corpse of one, suggesting that this creature may very well be immortal. The only reason this is making headlines now is because more of these jellyfish are popping up outside of the waters they were originally found.

Now here’s an idea for all you aspiring comic book authors out there that I’ll allow you to steal from me. What do you suppose would happen if some mad scientist had the bright idea of trying to figure out the biological process that makes this possible in order to allow humans to do the same thing? And if the process is successful, how would the regeneration process affect people with a living tissue disease like a brain tumor or a malignant form of cancer? What about the social, cultural, and political repercussions of such an advancement in science? I mean, we’re talking immortality being one medically administered injection away, here! Well, in the comic book sense…

Kind of strange how that works out. For the longest time, you had science fiction slowly becoming science fact. With that gap coming closer together, are we going to start seeing other works of fiction becoming fact? If so, here’s hoping nobody finds a real life Lazarus Pit or we may end up with a real life Ra’s al Ghul.