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By Jacopo Prisco, CNN

(CNN) — What does it mean to be alive? A new study on an astonishing sea creature suggests the answer may be more complicated than it seems.

Some amputated fragments of Psolus fabricii — a type of sea cucumber native to the North Atlantic Ocean — puzzled researchers when they noticed that the severed parts did not simply decay and die but instead appeared to grow.

To find out more, the researchers humanely excised additional fragments from the feet, main body and tentacles of the marine animals and ran a number of lab experiments in untreated seawater. Indeed, the fragments refused to die. The various parts unexpectedly healed themselves and even managed to absorb nutrients despite lacking a mouth.

“This is the first case of tissue immortality in natural conditions,” said Sara Jobson, lead author of a study describing the finding that published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. “These sea cucumbers are known for their high-regenerative capacity, so when they lose a tentacle or a tube foot they’re able to regrow it very well, but nobody’s ever looked at what happens to the tissues that are torn off, because we just assumed that they would die.”

The severed tissues, however, didn’t develop into whole new individuals — a process that can occur under certain conditions in some species of sea cucumber — bringing up some philosophical questions. “We lovingly call these tissue explants ‘our zombies,’ because they seem to ride the line between dead and alive,” said Jobson, a doctoral student of ocean sciences at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador.

“They’re not regrowing into a whole new organism — as far as we can tell, they seem to be their own entity that’s maintaining cellular function, but not a reproducing individual. Why would these small tissue chunks maintain the ability to heal and survive without any reproductive purpose? What’s the evolutionary driver that allows that to happen?”

Many animals are able to amputate tissue voluntarily and regrow it, most famously lizards that sacrifice their tails to escape predators. But the lost tail itself doesn’t do anything, Jobson noted. To draw a parallel with the sea cucumber, it’s as if a lizard tail healed itself and then wiggled around in the woods, gaining its own nutrients and surviving for years.

What’s even more surprising is that the severed tissue has been going strong for more than three years. “As far as we can tell, there weren’t any signs of death, degradation or necrosis,” Jobson added, referring to cell death. “It seemed to be able to go on forever. We just had to cut ourselves off at some point and put the study out there.”

In the long term, such work could help researchers better understand regeneration, wound healing, tissue maintenance and aging, said Veronica Hinman, director of the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience at the University of Florida, via email. She did not participate in the study. “I think the bigger finding, though, is that this work tests assumptions about what it means to be ‘alive’ and how this depends on the whole organism, rather than on the local self-organizing properties of tissues themselves.”

Immortal sea cucumbers?

The discovery that prompted the study was accidental, according to Jobson. “We work right on the coast, and we’re able to keep live animals in our lab,” she said. When a sea creature is needed for research, it’s usually pulled from its tank, she added, but some of the animals strongly attach themselves to their rock habitat or the aquarium itself. In this case, when a researcher removed the sea cucumber, some of its tube feet were left behind a

By Larry Madowo, Lauren Kent, Nimi Princewill, CNN

Nairobi (CNN) — The plan to launch this week a health facility in Kenya for Americans who may have been exposed to the Ebola virus has received widespread criticism – from both Kenyan doctors and US officials working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The main doctors’ union in Kenya and the Law Society of Kenya told CNN they oppose the plan, saying it risks importing Ebola into the East African nation, which has no cases as of Thursday.

Meanwhile in the United States, CDC officials strongly recommended against the plan to send Americans to Kenya, with the agency’s acting director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, also reportedly advising against it, according to a CDC source working on the Ebola response operations.

Some officers at the agency “are furious about it” and believe the plan “will make recruiting and staffing for Ebola response activities harder,” the CDC source told CNN.

Although the CDC source noted that there are “very proficient colleagues in Kenya,” they also said “it’s hard to imagine the standard of care will be able to meet that of the treatment facilities that have been developed at great cost over many years in the US. Let alone the aspects of wanting to be repatriated and closer to family, other supportive services, etc.”

CNN has reached out to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the CDC, for comment.

A Trump administration official previously told CNN that “treatment capabilities at the facility are expected to be able to care for the full spectrum of Ebola Virus Disease, including critical care needs, though each case will be evaluated for forward transport for more advanced care as appropriate in order to maximize patient outcomes.”

The outbreak, which is centered in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is believed to have caused at least 238 deaths and more than 1,000 suspected infections so far, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Driven by the Bundibugyo strain, a rare form of Ebola for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment, the virus has also crossed into neighboring Uganda, which has reported at least seven cases associated with the outbreak, including one death.

Doctors demand transparency on Ebola facility deal

A senior Trump administration official said Thursday that the US has received approval from the Kenyan government for isolation and quarantine units on its soil. However, the Kenyan government has yet to officially comment on the deal.

A 50-bed quarantine unit will be operational as of Friday, another senior administration official said. It will be located on the Laikipia Airbase, about 125 miles north of Nairobi. As of Thursday, no patients are set to go to the unit.

Additional isolation and biocontainment units will be available at the site later; if someone develops symptoms or tests positive, they will be evacuated to other facilities, a senior official said. The CDC and Department of State are working to determine where in Europe those facilities will be located.

Care will be provided by officers of the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service, who have already departed for Kenya. Around 30 officers received three days of training this