When I see a headline like this: “Red sea urchin ‘almost immortal’“, I assume it’s another case of a duff journo being sloppy with his language. ‘Almost immortal’ being an oxymoron, and all.
But no, it turns out that the line is a sub-edited quote from one of the scientists involved in studying the ‘practically immortal’ red sea urchin. Gee, I’ve real faith in that research.