Odd Jobs

Apparently, there’s a comic convention in Philadelphia next weekend.  There needs to be some sort of list of upcoming conventions somewhere, so I can see these things coming.  I’m sure this list actually exists somewhere on the internet, maybe I’ll accidentally find it someday.

But in the meantime, I keep finding out about these conventions at the very last second.  I probably won’t be able to get out to this one, alas.  I WILL be going to SPX, since I’ve heard about that one for months now.

And now it’s time for random information:

The Immortal Jellyfish, courtesy of wikipedia -

“Immortal jellyfish is a hydrozoan whose medusa, or jellyfish, form can revert to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of a metazoan capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation. Cell transdifferentiation is when the jellyfish “alters the differentiated state of the cell and transforms it into a new cell. In this process the medusa of the immortal jellyfish is transformed into the polyps of a new polyp colony.  Theoretically, this process can go on infinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal, although in nature, most Turritopsis, like other medusae, are likely to succumb to predation or disease in the plankton stage, without reverting to the polyp form.”

“This ability to reverse the life cycle (in response to adverse conditions) is probably unique in the animal kingdom, and allows the jellyfish to bypass death, rendering Turritopsis nutricula potentially biologically immortal.”