In Israel, a team of researchers chopped up some hydras, which are small, tentacled freshwater animals, but don’t worry, they didn’t die. In fact, you can cut up hydras but they have a built in fountain of youth as they regrow themselves. Scientists previously thought hydras had some sort of biochemical reaction that caused them to regrow their missing parts, but in fact, Israeli researchers discovered that it’s rather mechanical in nature due to a structural memory of the hydras cytoskeleton. This memory allows hydras to rebuild what they lost and helps them develop from a little ball of cut up tissue to a normally sized hydra all over again.
Researchers shared videos of the hydras rebuilding themselves, and they hope this study will help us better understand the combination of mechanics with biochemical signals in tissue regeneration in other animals, including humans.