Is 'Immortal' jellyfish key to eternal life?

For many beach-goers, jellyfish are a nuisance that blights the sea shore. But some scientists believes they could hold the key to immorality.

Professor Shin Kubota is an expert in marine biology and has been studying jellyfish since 1979. One tiny wonder in particular has become Kubota's life's work -- the Japanese scarlet jellyfish, popularly referred to by the mysterious moniker "the immortal jellyfish."

Classified under the genus Turritopsis, the Japanese scarlet jellyfish is very small but it has an unusual lifecycle ...

According to research conducted by Kubota and his students at Kyoto University's Seto Marine Biological Laboratory, an adult jellyfish or medusa will retreat to the sea floor when injured.

Step two is for the medusa to rearrange its cells and morph back into its infant state -- a polyp.

The polyp then grows into a brand new medusa and continues its journey through the seas. Kubota said: "Butterflies fly in the air. Jellyfish fly in the ocean. When jellyfish rejuvenate, it is like [when a] butterfly becomes back to worm."

• Japanese scarlet jellyfish is known as the "immortal jellyfish"


• Professor Shin Kubota is a marine expert from Japan researching its life cycle


• He says the jellyfish could be the key to rejuvenation in humans

The Art of Movement is a monthly show that highlights the most significant innovations in science and technology that are helping shape our modern world.

(CNN) -- For centuries, man has been on a quest to find the elixir to eternal life. Alchemists struggled fruitlessly to create the legendary philosopher's stone -- a mythical substance capable of turning base metals into precious gold, and said to hold the key to immortality.

But perhaps they were going about it the wrong way. Instead of searching for answers on land, maybe they should have been looking to the sea.

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In the seaside town of Shirahama, in Japan, one man thinks he knows what holds the key to everlasting life -- jellyfish.

Shin Kubota is a professor at Kyoto University's Seto Marine Biological Laboratory. He began studying the gelatinous sea creatures in 1979 but there's one type with which he's particularly preoccupied -- the scarlet jellyfish.

"They don't die," Kubota says, "they rejuvenate." He adds that they are one of three jellyfish species in japan that are considered "immortal."

"One day in my plankton net there was a small scarlet jellyfish from [the] south, which had many sharp sticks stuck into its body," he recalls. "I thought 'poor thing,' and removed all of the sticks, hoping it may become better and swim again. But it didn't and shrunk. However, it rejuvenated!"

Read: Swimming with sharks, without a cage

It's less immortality and more regeneration but Kubota believes these tiny marine animals could hold the secret to perpetual life.

When an adult scarlet jellyfish -- or medusa -- is injured it goes to the bottom of the ocean floor. From there it morphs back into its infant state, known as a polyp. Then the polyp becomes a brand new medusa, allowing the Jellyfish to move between an adult and infant state in about two months.

So far, Kubota has succeeded in making one jellyfish rejuvenate an incredible 12 times in the lab. But there remain many unanswered questions.

"There should be a key to rejuvenation in the system of scarlet jellyfish," says Kubota. "I'd like to believe it could be applied to human beings because genetically jellyfish and humans are not so different."

Watch the video below to see more about Kubota's work at the Seto Marine Biological Laboratory and Japan's "immortal" jellyfish.

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Report: 1,400 sex abuse cases in 1 town

• Abuses included gang rape, trafficking, beating, threats at gunpoint


• Victims were as young as 11 years old, the report says


• Social counselors, police, officials turned a blind eye, report says


• Most suspects were ethnic minorities, and authorities were afraid of being branded racists

(CNN) -- Hundreds of children have been systematically raped, beaten and sex trafficked in a northern English town for more than 12 years. And it is still going on, a government commissioned report says.

The "appalling" revelations also expose cultural tensions and lack of communication between authorities and the town's ethnic minorities that may have helped stop it.

Social counselors saw evidence of sexual exploitation early on, but turned a blind eye, according to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham.

The city's government recently made the inquiry's report available on its website.

And so the abuses amassed, which included gang rape and death threats at gunpoint.

At least 1,400 cases of abuse went on between 1997 and 2013 -- a conservative estimate, the report says. This year, specialist investigators are handling 51 cases. Other teams are looking at additional cases.

Torturous sexual abuse

The exploitation has reached a level tantamount to torture, according to the report.

"There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone," the report says.

Some victims were not even in their teens.

"Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators," the inquiry says.

The report accuses politicians, social services and police of "blatant" failure to stop them, citing an inability to traverse cultural barriers with Rotherham's small Muslim community.

Fear of label of racism

The perpetrators often worked together and were mostly of Pakistani heritage; the victims were mostly white girls, the report says.

An earlier report said that "Asian" gangs originally were exploiting women and girls "for their personal gratification" but later turned to making money with it, passing girls around.

Social counselors often took a hands-off approach to the cases for fear of being branded as racists or stoking a right-wing backlash in the city.

"Several (counselors) interviewed believed that by opening up these issues they could be 'giving oxygen' to racist perspectives that might in turn attract extremist political groups and threaten community cohesion. To some extent this concern was valid, with the apparent targeting of the town by groups such as the English Defence League," the report says.

Though known victims were mostly white, the report delved into an underbelly of alleged systematic abuse by select groups of Asian men against women in their own ethnic groups.

These often go unreported, because the victims fear vengeance or public shame in their communities, the report says. Perpetrators may be using that fear to blackmail these victims into continued sexual servitude.

Community left out

Cultural differences also hindered effective involvement with concerned members of Rotherham's Pakistani community.

Authorities turned to male community leaders and imams and greatly left out women. Many ethnic Pakistani women told the Inquiry that it made them feel disenfranchised and prevented people from speaking openly about abuse.

Members of both genders said they missed any direct engagement on the topic by officials. "This needed to be addressed urgently, rather than 'tiptoeing' around the issue," the report said.

Under the rug

Some social counselors also hoped cases they were seeing were one-off occurrences and hoped they would go away. That may have been bolstered by the fact that the vast majority of child sexual abusers in Britain are white males.

Research reports on the problem began appearing a few years ago, but they had little effect.

"The first of these reports was effectively suppressed, because some senior officers disbelieved the data it contained," the report said.

Social services managers downplayed the problem. Officials thought reports were exaggerated. Law enforcement gave it little importance.

"Police gave no priority to (child sexual abuse), regarding many child victims with contempt and failing to act on their abuse as a crime," the report said.

Improvement but frustration

By the time awareness of the problem increased by 2009, thinly staffed social service workers were overwhelmed by the number of potential victims.

There has been a marked improvement in training police to recognize sexual abuse and work together with social services, the inquiry says.

"But the team struggles to keep pace with the demands of its workload," according to the report. And finances are running low.

And still, few cases even make it to court.

Ebola outbreak is accelerating

• World Health Organization says West Africa Ebola outbreak continues to accelerate


• There are 1,552 confirmed deaths from the Ebola virus, WHO says


• New "road map" aims to curb outbreak in six to nine months, stop international spread


• Road map acknowledges that the eventual death toll in this outbreak could exceed 20,000

(CNN) -- The Ebola outbreak "continues to accelerate" in West Africa and has killed 1,552 people, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

The total number of cases stands at 3,069, with 40% occurring in the past three weeks. "However, most cases are concentrated in only a few localities," the WHO said.

The outbreak, the deadliest ever, has been centered in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, with a handful of cases in Nigeria. The overall fatality rate is 52%, the WHO said, ranging from 42% in Sierra Leone to 66% in Guinea.

The WHO issued a "road map" Thursday that "responds to the urgent need to dramatically scale up the international response" in light of the acceleration of new cases, it said.

Volunteers working with the bodies of Ebola victims in Kenema, Sierra Leone, sterilize their uniforms on Sunday, August 24. Health officials say the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the deadliest ever.

A Liberian Ministry of Health worker checks people for symptoms of Ebola at a checkpoint near the international airport in Dolo Town, Liberia, on August 24.

A guard stands at a checkpoint on Saturday, August 23, between the cities of Kenema and Kailahun in Sierra Leone, which have been quarantined due to the Ebola outbreak.

A burial team from the Liberian Ministry of Health unloads the bodies of Ebola victims onto a funeral pyre at a crematorium on Friday, August 22, in Marshall, Liberia.

A humanitarian group worker, right, throws water in a small bag to West Point residents behind the fence of a holding area, as they wait for a second consignment of food from the Liberian government to be handed out in Monrovia, Liberia. The military began enforcing a quarantine on West Point, a congested slum of 75,000, fearing a spread of the Ebola virus.

Dr. Kent Brantly leaves Emory University Hospital on Thursday, August 21, after being declared no longer infectious from the Ebola virus. Brantly was one of two American missionaries brought to Emory for treatment of the deadly virus, which has killed more than 1,350 people in West Africa since March, according to the World Health Organization.

Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly, right, hugs a member of the Emory University Hospital staff after being released from treatment in Atlanta on August 21.

Family members of West Point district commissioner Miata Flowers flee the slum in Monrovia, Liberia, while being escorted by the Ebola Task Force on Wednesday, August 20.

An Ebola Task Force soldier beats a local resident while enforcing a quarantine on the West Point slum on August 20.

Local residents gather around a very sick Saah Exco, 10, in a back alley of the West Point slum on Tuesday, August 19. The boy was one of the patients that was pulled out of a holding center for suspected Ebola patients after the facility was overrun and closed by a mob on August 16. A local clinic then refused to treat Saah, according to residents, because of the danger of infection. Although he was never tested for Ebola, Saah's mother and brother died in the holding center.

A burial team wearing protective clothing retrieves the body of a 60-year-old Ebola victim from his home near Monrovia on Sunday, August 17.

lija Siafa, 6, stands in the rain with his 10-year-old sister, Josephine, while waiting outside Doctors Without Borders' Ebola treatment center in Monrovia on August 17. The newly built facility will initially have 120 beds, making it the largest-ever facility for Ebola treatment and isolation.

Brett Adamson, a staff member from Doctors Without Borders, hands out water to sick Liberians hoping to enter the new Ebola treatment center on August 17.

Workers prepare the new Ebola treatment center on August 17.

A body, reportedly a victim of Ebola, lies on a street corner in Monrovia on Saturday, August 16.

Liberian police depart after firing shots in the air while trying to protect an Ebola burial team in the West Point slum of Monrovia on August 16. A crowd of several hundred local residents reportedly drove away the burial team and their police escort. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation ward and took patients out, saying the Ebola epidemic is a hoax.

A crowd enters the grounds of an Ebola isolation center in the West Point slum on August 16. The mob was reportedly shouting, "No Ebola in West Point."

A health worker disinfects a corpse after a man died in a classroom being used as an Ebola isolation ward Friday, August 15, in Monrovia.

A boy tries to prepare his father before they are taken to an Ebola isolation ward August 15 in Monrovia.

Kenyan health officials take passengers' temperature as they arrive at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on Thursday, August 14, in Nairobi, Kenya.

A hearse carries the coffin of Spanish priest Miguel Pajares after he died at a Madrid hospital on Tuesday, August 12. Pajares, 75, contracted Ebola while he was working as a missionary in Liberia.

A member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention leads a training session on Ebola infection control Monday, August 11, in Lagos, Nigeria.

Health workers in Kenema, Sierra Leone, screen people for the Ebola virus on Saturday, August 9, before they enter the Kenema Government Hospital.

A health worker at the Kenema Government Hospital carries equipment used to decontaminate clothing and equipment on August 9.

Health care workers wear protective gear at the Kenema Government Hospital on August 9.

Paramedics in protective suits move Pajares, the infected Spanish priest, at Carlos III Hospital in Madrid on Thursday, August 7. He died five days later.

Nurses carry the body of an Ebola victim from a house outside Monrovia on Wednesday, August 6.

A Nigerian health official wears protective gear August 6 at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.

Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta sit in on a conference call about Ebola with CDC team members deployed in West Africa on Tuesday, August 5.

Aid worker Nancy Writebol, wearing a protective suit, gets wheeled on a gurney into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on August 5. A medical plane flew Writebol from Liberia to the United States after she and her colleague Dr. Kent Brantly were infected with the Ebola virus in the West African country.

Nigerian health officials are on hand to screen passengers at Murtala Muhammed International Airport on Monday, August 4.

A man gets sprayed with disinfectant Sunday, August 3, in Monrovia.

Dr. Kent Brantly, right, gets out of an ambulance after arriving at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on Saturday, August 2. Brantly was infected with the Ebola virus in Africa, but he was brought back to the United States for further treatment.

Nurses wearing protective clothing are sprayed with disinfectant Friday, August 1, in Monrovia after they prepared the bodies of Ebola victims for burial.

A nurse disinfects the waiting area at the ELWA Hospital in Monrovia on Monday, July 28.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, right, walks past an Ebola awareness poster in downtown Monrovia as Liberia marked the 167th anniversary of its independence Saturday, July 26. The Liberian government dedicated the anniversary to fighting the deadly disease.

In this photo provided by Samaritan's Purse, Dr. Kent Brantly, left, treats an Ebola patient in Monrovia. On July 26, the North Carolina-based group said Brantly tested positive for the disease. Days later, Brantly arrived in Georgia to be treated at an Atlanta hospital, becoming the first Ebola patient to knowingly be treated in the United States.

A 10-year-old boy whose mother was killed by the Ebola virus walks with a doctor from the aid organization Samaritan's Purse after being taken out of quarantine Thursday, July 24, in Monrovia.

A doctor puts on protective gear at the treatment center in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, on Sunday, July 20.

Members of Doctors Without Borders adjust tents in the isolation area in Kailahun on July 20.

Boots dry in the Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 20.

Red Cross volunteers prepare to enter a house where an Ebola victim died in Pendembu, Sierra Leone, on Friday, July 18.

Dr. Jose Rovira of the World Health Organization takes a swab from a suspected Ebola victim in Pendembu on July 18.

Red Cross volunteers disinfect each other with chlorine after removing the body of an Ebola victim from a house in Pendembu on July 18.

A dressing assistant prepares a Doctors Without Borders member before entering an isolation ward Thursday, July 17, in Kailahun.

A doctor works in the field laboratory at the Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 17.

Doctors Without Borders staff prepare to enter the isolation ward at an Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 17.

A health worker with disinfectant spray walks down a street outside the government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone, on Thursday, July 10.

Dr. Mohamed Vandi of the Kenema Government Hospital trains community volunteers who will aim to educate people about Ebola in Sierra Leone.

Police block a road outside Kenema to stop motorists for a body temperature check on Wednesday, July 9.

A woman has her temperature taken at a screening checkpoint on the road out of Kenema on July 9.

A member of Doctors Without Borders puts on protective gear at the isolation ward of the Donka Hospital in Conakry, Guinea, on Saturday, June 28.

Airport employees check passengers in Conakry before they leave the country on Thursday, April 10.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, left, works in the World Health Organization's mobile lab in Conakry. Gupta traveled to Guinea in April to report on the deadly virus.

A Guinea-Bissau customs official watches arrivals from Conakry on Tuesday, April 8.

Egidia Almeida, a nurse in Guinea-Bissau, scans a Guinean citizen coming from Conakry on April 8.

A scientist separates blood cells from plasma cells to isolate any Ebola RNA and test for the virus Thursday, April 3, at the European Mobile Laboratory in Gueckedou, Guinea.

Members of Doctors Without Borders carry a dead body in Gueckedou on Friday, April 1.

Gloves and boots used by medical personnel dry in the sun April 1 outside a center for Ebola victims in Gueckedou.

A health specialist works Monday, March 31, in a tent laboratory set up at a Doctors Without Borders facility in southern Guinea.

Health specialists work March 31 at an isolation ward for patients at the facility in southern Guinea.

Workers associated with Doctors Without Borders prepare isolation and treatment areas Friday, March 28, in Guinea.

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Photos: Ebola outbreak in Africa

How an Ebola outbreak can start, and end

CDC: Worker possibly exposed to Ebola

It aims to stop Ebola transmission in affected countries within six to nine months and prevent its spread internationally.

The road map prioritizes the setting up of treatment centers, community mobilization and safe burials.

It will also try to overcome bottlenecks in vital supplies such as personal protective equipment, disinfectants and body bags.

The road map is based on an assumption that "in many areas of intense transmission the actual number of cases may be 2-4 fold higher than that currently reported," the document states.

It also acknowledges that the total number of cases "could exceed 20,000 over the course of this emergency."

But such a plan is easier stated than carried out, said the aid group Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres.

The road map should not give a false sense of hope, the group's director of operations, Brice de le Vingne, said in a statement.

"A plan needs to be acted upon," he said. "Huge questions remain about who will implement the elements in the plan."

All of the best medical aid organizations have not had the proper setup to respond at the scale needed to seriously make a dent in the Ebola outbreak, he said.

"As an international public health emergency, states with the capacity to help have the responsibility to mobilize resources to the affected countries, rather than watching from the sidelines with a naive hope that the situation will improve," he said.

Vaccine trials accelerated

An Ebola vaccine being developed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and GlaxoSmithKline will be fast-tracked for human trials, the international consortium behind the effort said Thursday.

The experimental vaccine could be given to healthy volunteers in Britain, Gambia and Mali as early as September, according to a statement from the consortium, which provided funding.

The vaccine, which does not contain infectious virus material, has showed promise in early tests on primates to protect them from Ebola without significant adverse effects, the statement said.

The human trials will begin as soon as ethical and regulatory approvals are granted.

Nine things to know about the killer disease

'Worse than I'd feared'

Health workers are paying a heavy price as they care for those struck down by the virus.

Are we closer to stopping Ebola?

American leads Ebola treatment center

The WHO said Monday that 120 health care workers have died in the Ebola outbreak, and twice that number have been infected.

Public health experts say several factors are to blame, including a shortage of protective gear and improper use of the gear the workers do have.

"It's even worse than I'd feared," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday of the crisis. "Every day this outbreak goes on, it increases the risk for another export to another country.

"The sooner the world comes together to help Liberia and West Africans, the safer we will all be."

Frieden spoke to CNN's Nima Elbagir in Monrovia, Liberia, where fear and anger over the largest Ebola outbreak on record has grown as health officials put up quarantines around some of the capital city's poorest areas.

A separate Ebola outbreak, unrelated to the one in West Africa, was reported Sunday by the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Are myths making the Ebola outbreak worse?

CNN's Miriam Falco, Carol Jordan and Nana Karikari-apau contributed to this report.