Security lessons from Nature – Immortal Jellyfish

Today, let’s take a look at the other side of immortality (the down-side of which was explored here).  In particular, let’s look at jellyfish.

That’s right, scientists have discovered immortal jellyfish.  (Such an interesting world that we live in.)

What’s most interesting about these creatures is how they achieve immortality:

But when starvation, physical damage, or other crises arise, “instead of sure death, [Turritopsis] transforms all of its existing cells into a younger state,” said study author Maria Pia Miglietta, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University.

The jellyfish turns itself into a bloblike cyst, which then develops into a polyp colony, essentially the first stage in jellyfish life.

The jellyfish’s cells are often completely transformed in the process. Muscle cells can become nerve cells or even sperm or eggs.

In other words, it does a “reset”.  This allows it to adjust in the face of environmental changes and rebuilt itself in such a way as to maximize success.

How many times have you had your IT people come up to you and say “if only you’d let us re-write/re-build the system, we could make all these problems go away”?  How many times have you sighed, shaken your head and patiently explained to them why such a move didn’t make business sense?

Looking at the jellyfish, it might be worth considering.  If things aren’t looking too good, maybe it would make sense to take another look at those persistent business problems.  If you can solve even ONE of them, it might allow you to rebuild your company.  After all, it worked for Flickr.