 Ultimate Survivors - Tardigrades
Tardigrade, AKA Water Bear, is a highly resilient microscopic animal that is ubiquitous on Earth. Photo courtesy of NASA/Ames Research Center.
Tardigrades, also known as Water Bears, are microscopic animals that researcher Thomas Boothby says "look like a Gummy Bear with eight legs." Many are transparent and you can see inside of them with a microscope. Their transparency, coloration, and outer coating is species specific.
Tardigrades are capable of surviving the harshest, most extreme conditions that we know of. Examples include being:
- Frozen to just above absolute zero
- Exposed to radiation 1,000s of times stronger than what humans can survive
- Dried out completely - fully desiccated to the point of no cellular water
- Heated past the boiling point of water
- In very low oxygen or no-oxygen environments for days or weeks
- In the vacuum of space - they are the only known animal that can survive this!
Their live span is about two months. But if they are exposed to a harsh condition, such as a complete lack of water, they will curl up into a tiny ball and shut down their metabolism. In this a-metabolic state their aging process is suspended. Once there is enough moisture for them to resume metabolic activity their aging process will resume. Tardigrades have been documented as surviving 100+ years in an a-metabolic state and reviving successfully!
A protein - found only in tardigrades - is thought to be a key to their amazing ability to survive harsh conditions. Dr. Thomas Boothby studies tardigrades in hope of making biological findings that can be applied to real word problems, such as the stabilization of medicines, development of crops that are resistant to extreme environments, and health applications - including the health of astronauts during space travel.
Tardigrades live all over the world. They have been found at the tops tops of the world's tallest mountains, deep in the ocean, in tropical rainforests, in Antarctica, and in mud volcanoes. You can even find them in your own backyard!
Houston podcast image by Tagide deCarvalho.
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