- 3836 - TARDIGRADES - are near indestructible life? We can all rest assured that even if a sequence of devastating events, or one enormous planet-killing disaster, manages to wipe out most species alive today, the tardigrades will still somehow manage to come out on top, ensuring that "life as a whole will go on, -
--------- 3836
- TARDIGRADES - are
near indestructible life?
- Tardigrades are tiny, endearingly tubby
bodies, about half a millimeter long, That can dry out for years at a stretch
and then revive with no damage. They can endure extreme heat and cold that
would kill most other forms of life, and they can even withstand radiation in
space.
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- Whether you know them as “water bears” or
“moss piglets”, they’re microscopic bundles of awesomeness.
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- They're basically just heads. All tardigrades have plump, compact bodies,
with four leg-bearing segments, each
sporting a pair of clawed limbs, and a stubby head tipped by a toothy mouth
ring.
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- At some point in their evolutionary past,
tardigrades lost several genes linked to the development of body segments, and
along with that they also lost the body parts that correspond to the thorax and
abdomen in other arthropods.
-
- Tardigrades' present "segmented"
body plan closely resembles the head segments found in arthropods.
-
- They lay eggs topped with grasping
"spaghetti”. Tardigrades can live
just about any place on Earth where there's water, and a new species was
recently discovered in a parking lot in Japan.
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- There are more than 1,000 known tardigrade
species, and “Macrobiotus shonaicus”
became the 168th species from Japan. Tardigrades are often found living
in moss and lichens, and the new species turned up in a moss sample in a
parking lot which was "quite surprising.
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- The oddest thing about this tardigrade is
its eggs, which were topped with wiggly, spaghetti-like tendrils. These noodly
appendages may help to attach the eggs to surfaces after the tardigrade leaves
them.
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- They can withstand intense heat and
freezing cold. Hardy tardigrades can
survive punishing conditions that would be lethal to most living things,
weathering temperatures up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and as low as minus 328
degrees Fahrenheit.
-
- They do this by expelling all the water
from their bodies, retracting their stubby limbs, and curling up into dried-out
balls, a type of suspended animation known as a "tun." When the
danger has passed, they rehydrate and return to normal, with seemingly no ill
effects.
-
- Recently, scientists discovered that a
certain type of protein that is unique to tardigrades may be the secret to
their recovery prowess. Tardigrade species that had a constant supply of this
protein were more successful at recovering from a tun state than their cousins
that did not always produce the protein.
-
- They have no childhood, hatching from their
eggs fully formed, Researchers have long
been fascinated by tardigrades, which have been around for at least 500 million
years, and in 1938 scientists learned that minuscule water bears hatch from
their eggs in their adult forms.
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- Many arthropod relatives of tardigrades have
a distinct larval stage as juveniles, in which their bodies look dramatically
different from those of adults, picture the chubby grubs that grow up to be
termites, or the caterpillars that metamorphose into moths or butterflies.
-
- Hatchling tardigrades, on the other hand,
look exactly like adult tardigrades, if a little smaller. Molting occurs
several times during tardigrades' lifetime, during which they shed their skins
to accommodate their growing bodies, but they maintain the same body plan
throughout their lives.
-
- They have a built-in "space
suit". Not only can tardigrades
survive exposure to extreme temperatures, they can also withstand boiling
liquids and pressures up to six times that at the ocean's deepest regions. But
tardigrades' survival superpowers extend even further, beyond conditions on
Earth to encompass the hazards of space travel.
-
- Tardigrades can recover after facing
unfiltered solar radiation and space's vacuum, adding them to an
"exclusive and short list of organisms" capable of doing so.
-
- Dried-out adult tardigrades and eggs in two
species were exposed to space vacuum and radiation over 10 days at low-Earth
orbit, about 846,000 to 922,000 feet above sea level. The specimens were then
later resuscitated and examined.
-
- They survived "very well" after
exposure to the vacuum of space, though survival among those exposed to
radiation was "significantly reduced.
-
- They can be frozen for decades and still
reproduce when they wake up. Two tardigrades that spent over 30 years in a
researcher's freezer were successfully resuscitated, and one of them almost
immediately started getting busy.
-
- The tardigrades were retrieved from a piece
of moss that had been stored at minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1983, and the
animals were in a suspended state known as "cryptobiosis," showing no
signs of their normal metabolic processes.
-
- But just one day after rehydration, one of
the tardigrades was stretching its legs, and by the time 22 days had passed,
researchers saw eggs inside its body. It eventually laid 19 eggs, producing 14
live hatchlings.
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- They inspire new kinds of glass. A new type of glass that could improve the
efficiency of solar cells and LED lights owes its inspiration to tiny
tardigrades.When these microscopic creatures expel all the water from their
bodies to enter their suspended "tun" state, special proteins that
are only found in tardigrades turn the fluid inside their cells into a
glasslike substance, protecting biological structures until the tardigrade can
be rehydrated and revived.
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- Researchers were intrigued by this ability
in 2015 to develop a glass material with a molecular structure that was highly
organized, more akin to crystals than glass.
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- These "oriented" molecules could
make glass more efficient at capturing and directing light, which could improve
the performance of devices such as optical fibers, LEDs and solar cells.
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- They may outlive humanity, this planet, and
possibly even the sun. A team of
scientists considered a series of doomsday scenarios that would be catastrophic
for humanity, including nearby supernovas, the expansion of our own sun to a
red giant star, and a massive asteroid colliding with Earth.
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- In every scenario, tardigrades were just
fine, confirming that when it comes to life on Earth, they are as close to
indestructible as it gets.
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January 23, 2022 TARDIGRADES
- are near indestructible life? 3836
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--------------------- --- Monday, January 23, 2023 ---------------------------
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