Chroniton

A chroniton (or chronoton) is a small purple orb that are unstable in the field of time and can cause time to lurch forwards. Professor Farnsworth had his crew collect them to speed up the growth of his Mutant Atomic Supermen. However, upon collecting them, the loss of chronitons caused time to leak (which smells really bad) and time began to skip forward, randomly. They eventually solved the problem by destroying a cluster of stars, causing a black hole that prevented additional chronitons from escaping the Tempus Nebula. Chronitons are also able to cause time move backwards. If the chronitons are attached to a person's DNA (or a robot's RNA), they can cause a person to revert to a younger age. This occurred to the Planet Express Crew, who where hit with tar, saturated with chronitons, from The Bubbling Geezer. As the crew also demonstrated, if the adhesive lair was removed, chronitons would spread throughout the affected body, causing uncontrollable reversal of age.