There’s No Such Thing As a Jellyfish

October 5, 2012

By Michael Keller

There’s a wide world of seemingly alien, gelatinous animals living in the world’s oceans, and not one of them is a jellyfish. Ease into the workweek with this short trip through the diversity of Scyphozoa, Anthozoans, Cubozoans and their ilk with this video, which got an honorable mention at last year’s International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. The video was made by Steven Haddock, Susan Von Thun, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and jellywatch.org.

Before your mind floats too far into the ocean deep, take a look at these two Cnidarian-inspired creations.

You’re looking at an artificial “jellyfish” created by Caltech and Harvard bioengineers, who put a layer of rat heart cells on a silicone form. When the creation is hit with an external electrical field, it contracts and swims like its namesake.

For those who might be a bit squeamish about such things, here is a fully mechanical “jellyfish” created at Virginia Tech.

And this remote-controlled flying “jellyfish” by automation technology company Festo.

Nature makes some interesting art projects and so do people.

 

Top Image: Jelly 2 (Ring of Fire!). Courtesy Flickr user nick4900.

Michael Keller is the Managing Editor of Txchnologist. His science, technology and international reporting work has appeared online and in newspapers, magazines and books, including the graphic novel Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

This post was originally published on the Txchnologist.