Alien-like comb jellies have a nervous system like nothing ever seen before

Ctenophores, or comb jellies, are unusual jelly-like animals that ghost by the ocean propelled by tiny hairs referred to as cilia. They’re an enigmatic bunch, with origins that stretch again roughly 540 million years, and nobody is bound precisely after they diverged from the remainder of the tree of life. 

Now, researchers have found that these alien-like creatures are even weirder than we thought: Their nervous system is like nothing ever seen earlier than. As an alternative of counting on gaps between nerve cells referred to as synapses for communication, not less than a part of the ctenophore nervous system is fused.