Earth's ultimate survivors can weather extreme heat, cold, radiation and even the vacuum of space. Now the U.S. military hopes these tiny critters called tardigrades can teach us something about toughness.
Earth's ultimate survivors can weather extreme heat, cold, radiation and even the vacuum of space. Now the U.S. military hopes these tiny critters called tardigrades can teach us about true toughness.
When the going gets tough for tardigrades, they curl up, dry out and wait. Then, when the environment gets better and they get water, they spring back to life.In 2007, scientists put two species of tardigrades in containers, launched them into orbit and opened them up to cold, airless space full of punishing radiation from the sun and stars.
Speaking from McMurdo Station in Antarctica, Brigham Young University biologist Byron Adams said he can walk a few hundred yards outside and find tardigrades. He called them the tigers of inland Antarctica, near the top of the limited food chain, eating algae and aquatic plants. Not all the critters come back from suspended animation, Miller said. But overall, they survive, even living through Earth's five mass extinctions.
In December, the Defense Department's long-term research arm gave Boothby a nearly $5 million grant to figure out what in tardigrade genes might help human health. Japanese scientists are studying whether tardigrade proteins could help them come up with a better sunscreen to protect against ultraviolet rays that cause skin cancer. A 2016 study showed that human cells augmented with a DNA protein unique to tardigrades reduced radiation damage in preliminary lab tests.
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