Lipids Perform Under Pressure

Sea Gooseberry © Vsevolod Rudyi, CC BY 4.0, via iNaturalist

on January 1, 2025

Comb jellies (creatures that look like jellyfish but without the stinging tentacles) can survive the extreme pressure of the deep sea. But on land, they melt like butter.

Scientists recently learned that comb jellies survive under pressure thanks to specially adapted cell membranes made of lipids (fatty molecules).

Think of the membrane as a plastic zipper bag and the lipids inside as hard-boiled eggs. Pressurized, the eggs will break apart. Pressurize a zipper bag of slime, and the slime will move and adjust without losing its ability to function. The comb jellies’ lipids can adapt under pressure of the deep sea and change form. So rather than solid like hard-boiled eggs, the lipids are malleable, like slime. The downside is that when they come to the surface of the ocean, the slime has no force to hold it together.

This amazing adaptation is another incredible example of how God has designed his creatures to survive and fill the earth, even earth’s extreme environments, from the skies to the seas.

This article is from Answers magazine, January–March, 2025, p. 17.