Ira Flatow

Imagine if you were to lose a body part, let's say a toe.

You'd hurry to get medical care right, but that lost toe would eventually shrivel up and decompose.

But researchers have found that in some species of sea cucumbers, that lost body part, maybe a tentacle or a tube foot, that part can keep on living without the rest of the organism.

So far, they've observed what they are calling zombie sea cucumber parts living for at least three years.

Pretty wild stuff.

Joining me now to talk about it are Rachel Sippler, a senior research scientist in the Bigelow Laboratory that's in East Booth Bay, Maine, and Sarah Jobson, a PhD student at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St.

John's, Canada, two authors on a recently published report on this phenomenon.

Welcome to Science Friday.

You're quite welcome.

Let me get right into this because it sounds really weird.

It looks like this discovery was sort of serendipity made by keen observation.

Not expected.

Take me through the discovery, please.

And why did they not disappear?

Sarah, do these body parts do anything or they're just sitting there on the glass or the side of the tank?

That's why you're calling them zombie parts.

Well, let's get into that a little bit more.

Why would they not be alive?

Why would they not be dead?

How are these body parts, so to speak, able to fight off being eaten, fight off bacteria, microorganisms in the ocean?