He's also a polyp, bristling and squishy, a creature Picasso himself called a turd.

他本人则像只竖着刚毛粘乎乎水螅，对这个生物，毕加索称之为一坨屎。

These polyparies were sticking to rocks, shells of mollusks, and even the stalks of water plants.

这些水螅丛附在岩石上，软体动物介壳上，并且附在蛇婆茎上。

But hydra have neural nets of diffuse brain cells, rather than a dense organ-like we have.

但水螅有弥漫脑细胞构成神经网络，而不像我们有一个密集器官。

This attaches to a rock or another solid surface where it continues to grow, becoming a polyp.

幼体水母附在岩石或者其他坚硬表面上继续生长，成为水螅体。

This is because they are spawned from polyps on the seabed.

这是因为它们是从海底水螅体中产生。

Once a polyp finds a nice rock to settle down on, it starts to transform.

一旦一个水螅找到了一块合适岩石安家，它就开始发生变化。

Instead of a brain, hydras have nerve nets, the most basic nervous systems in nature.

水螅没有大脑，而是拥有神经网络 ，这是自然界中最基本神经系统。

This year, a group of Japanese scientists demonstrated that hydras sleep.

今年，一群日本科学家 证明了水螅睡觉。

Even the tops of the mountains are blessed with flowers, -dwarf phlox, polemonium, ribes, hulsea, etc.

就连山顶也开满了鲜花——矮福禄考、极地菊、葶苈、水螅等。

Can humans learn the secrets of longevity from the hydra, a tiny aquatic creature capable of indefinite self-renewal?

人类能否从水螅这种具有自我更新能力微小水生生物身上学到长寿秘诀呢？

So these regenerated hydra were more deformed, and usually had multiple body axes – like two mouths and two feet.

所以这些再生水螅形态更加畸形，通常具有多个身体轴——比如两个嘴和两个脚。

Hydra have thin, parallel actomyosin fibers running throughout their body, like our muscle tissue.

水螅体内分布着细长且平行肌动蛋白-肌球蛋白纤维，类似于我们肌肉组织。

Instead, they're flattened tubes with many openings that once hosted colonies of tentacled  polyps, kind of like how coral lives today.

相反，它们是扁平管状结构， 有许多开口， 曾经容纳了触手型水螅群体，有点像今天珊瑚生活方式。

But unlike butterflies, if Turritopsis get wounded or if times get tough, they can morph backwards, reverting to their immature polyp form until conditions improve.

而与蝴蝶不同是，如果受伤或者生存条件恶劣，灯塔水母们可以回到之前阶段，在状况改善之前变回它们非成熟期时类似水螅虫样子。

See, hydra bodies are really simple: one head and one foot lined up along a single body axis.

看看，水螅身体非常简单：一个头部和一个足部沿着单一身体轴线排列。

And even though hydra regeneration is a little more extreme, it’s similar to how we humans heal wounds and develop as embryos.

尽管水螅再生能力有点极端，但它类似于我们人类如何愈合伤口和胚胎如何发育过程。

Like some giant tortoises that can reach near 200 years and some small freshwater animals of the genus Hydra that appear not to age at all.

像一些巨型龟寿命能活到将近两百岁，还有一些水螅属淡水小动物，它们看起来一点也没有走向衰老痕迹。

The alignment of actomyosin fibers in the spheroid lays out a structure that gets inherited throughout the new hydra’s body.

球状体中肌动蛋白-肌球蛋白纤维排列构成了一种结构，这种结构会被继承到新生水螅身体中。

The team followed more than two thousand individual hydras for a combination of 3.9 million days.

研究团队跟踪了超过两千只个体水螅，总计长达390天。

And hydra – the squishy tube-shaped freshwater animal, not the mythological sea serpent or Marvel villain – are really, really good at it.

而且水螅——那种柔软管状淡水生物，不是神话中海蛇或漫威反派——非常非常擅长此道。