#Science and #Poetry in Pond Water

Bobcat in #NewMexico #Wildlife Happy #NewYear :) #NewYear2016

#Science and #Poetry in Pond Water

Immortal Sits Upon Your Thumb – by Kate Rauner

Hydra budding a baby

Do you want to live forever?

Immortality?

Uploaded to a cyborg mind

At the singularity?

Humans often end up cursed

When begging gifts from gods.

Beware of this approach,

You’ll find it to be flawed.

From deadly cinnabar,

Brew your own elixir.

Seek the golden apples,

Or Milk Ocean’s sweet nectar.

A simple little polyp

Achieves your heart’s desire.

Won’t deteriorate with age,

It’s life force will not tire.

Could sit upon your thumbnail,

This tiny glove of tentacles.

Forever totipotent,

It’s mostly made of stem cells.

As long as it’s not eaten,

In clean pond water’s flow,

The hydra flaunts your greatest wish

And doesn’t even know.

I love to watch scientists follow their data, even when it leads away from their hypotheses:

I started my original experiment wanting to prove that hydra could not have escaped aging,” study researcher Daniel Martinez, a Pomona College biologist, said in a statement. ‘My own data has proven me wrong — twice… I do believe that an individual hydra can live forever under the right circumstances.’

Unlike most multicellular species, hydra don’t show any signs of deteriorating with age, according to the new research, published Dec. 7 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

Thanks to livescience.com. Don’t try these.