‘Cyborg jellyfish’ could aid in deep-sea research, inspire next-gen underwater vehicles

In a towering aquarium in a darkened laboratory, moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) hover as if floating in area. The glow of neon lights illuminates their translucent, bell-shaped our bodies as they develop and contract rhythmically, their swish tentacles flowing in wavelike patterns.

CU Boulder engineer Nicole Xu watches them with fondness. Xu, an assistant professor within the Paul M. Rady Division of Mechanical Engineering, first grew to become fascinated with moon jellies greater than a decade in the past due to their extraordinary swimming talents.

At the moment, Xu has developed a option to harness their effectivity and ease at transferring by means of the water in ways in which may make some sorts of aquatic analysis a lot simpler.

She suits the jellies with microelectronic units that activate key swimming muscle tissues, enabling researchers to steer them towards distant ocean areas which are onerous to entry in some other approach. Ultimately, she plans so as to add sensors to the units that may collect vital knowledge on temperature, pH and different environmental traits.

“Consider our machine like a pacemaker on the guts,” Xu mentioned. “We’re stimulating the swim muscle by inflicting contractions and turning the animals in the direction of a sure route.”

Going the place people cannot go

As local weather change accelerates, ocean waters have gotten much less hospitable for quite a lot of marine life. The ocean is getting hotter and extra acidic because it absorbs rising quantities of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Measuring modifications within the ocean is important to understanding how human actions are impacting all life on Earth. However as a result of the ocean is so huge and deep, some elements are onerous to check with out prohibitively costly gear. The cyborg jellies may supply a approach for people to wade into these comparatively uncharted waters.

Moon jellyfish are probably the most energy-efficient animals on the planet. They’re prehistoric, with a easy physique construction that has stayed the identical for greater than 500 million years. As invertebrates, in addition they lack a mind or spinal twine, although they do have primary organs and a pair of overlapping nerve nets. Importantly, the jellies shouldn’t have nociceptors, or sensory receptors that may detect probably dangerous stimuli.

Moon jellies can vary from a centimeter to greater than a foot in diameter. Their quick, high quality tentacles assist them sting and catch prey like zooplankton, crustacean larvae and small fish. However fortunately for Xu, their sting cells cannot penetrate human pores and skin.

Although they’re typically discovered close to coastlines, near their favourite meals sources, moon jellies stay in various habitats worldwide and may swim to unimaginable depths: They have been present in a number of the lowest locations on Earth, together with the Mariana Trench, which sits roughly 36,000 toes beneath the western Pacific Ocean’s floor at its deepest level.

Xu co-created the biohybrid robotic jellyfish idea along with her former educational advisor about 5 years in the past, and she or he first tested them in the field in 2020, steering them round shallow ocean waters off the coast of Woods Gap, Mass.

On prime of the implications for ocean and local weather analysis, Xu believes we will draw inspiration from the jellyfish.

“There’s actually one thing particular about the way in which moon jellies swim. We need to unlock that to create extra energy-efficient, next-generation underwater automobiles,” she mentioned.

Striving for moral analysis

At the moment, Xu spends a lot of her time learning exactly how moon jellies transfer by means of the water with such ease.

Xu, analysis affiliate Yunxing Su and graduate pupil Mija Jovchevska published a new study in Bodily Overview Fluids that concerned including biodegradable particles to a jellyfish tank. The researchers then shone a laser by means of the tank to light up the suspended particles within the water and visualize how water flows when jellies swim.

Prior to now, researchers have used artificial tracers corresponding to silver-coated glass beads to take a look at underwater circulate patterns, however the brand new research suggests biodegradable particles, corresponding to corn starch, might be extra sustainable, extra reasonably priced and fewer poisonous options.

She and graduate pupil Charlie Fraga are additionally engaged on making the jellyfish simpler to steer within the wild. Going ahead, Xu hopes to design different nature-inspired instruments for learning the ocean.

There’s extra to study in regards to the ethics of learning invertebrates. In a Bioinspiration & Biomimetics paper published earlier in 2025, Xu and others identified the necessity for extra investigation of how analysis impacts invertebrates. It was as soon as extensively believed that invertebrates could not really feel ache, however there’s rising proof that some do react to aversive stimuli.

By all of her analysis, Xu says she strives to reduce hurt to the animals she works with. After they’re pressured, moon jellies might secrete further mucus, and so they typically cease reproducing. However Xu’s jellies haven’t proven elevated mucus manufacturing, and small polyps—child jellyfish the scale of a pinhead whose tentacles are simply starting to type—line the within of Xu’s jellyfish tanks.

“It is our accountability as researchers to consider these moral issues up entrance,” Xu mentioned. “However so far as we will inform, the jellyfish are doing properly. They’re thriving.”