MUN Gazette: Zombie sea cucumbers

A small piece of sea cucumber left behind from a laboratory experiment should have begun degrading within days.

Instead, weeks passed, then months, and eventually years.

The tissue was not only still present. It was alive.

Now, a study led by PhD student Sara Jobson in Memorial University’s Department of Ocean Sciences in the Faculty of Science, has documented what may be the first known case of long-term tissue survival and growth outside a living organism under natural conditions — a discovery that raises new questions about life, death and the boundaries in between.