Water Bears Spent 10 Days in Open Space. What Really Happened #Shorts
Pack: 07 - Water Bears Spent 10 Days in Open Space. What Really Happened
Tardigrades, or water bears, are tiny eight-legged animals, and in 2007 dried ones spent ten days exposed to open space.
- Many tardigrades are less than half a millimeter long (Smithsonian's National Zoo; NASA).
- When they dry out, they curl into a ball called a tun and their metabolism drops to almost nothing; water revives them (Smithsonian Magazine, 2017; Hashimoto et al., Nature Communications, 2016).
- On ESA's FOTON-M3 mission in September 2007, space vacuum alone did not lower their survival compared with lab controls. Under full solar UV, only three animals survived (Jönsson et al., Current Biology, 2008).
- A tardigrade protein called Dsup reduced X-ray damage to DNA in cultured human cells by about 40%. That was lab cells, not people (Hashimoto et al., Nature Communications, 2016).
Which water bear trick surprises you most?
Sources
- Jönsson et al., "Tardigrades survive exposure to space in low Earth orbit," Current Biology, 2008
- Hashimoto et al., "Extremotolerant tardigrade genome and improved radiotolerance of human cultured cells by tardigrade-unique protein," Nature Communications, 2016
- Smithsonian Magazine, "How the Remarkable Tardigrade Springs Back to Life after Drying Out," 2017
- Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, "Microscopic Resilience: Lessons from the Tardigrade"
- NASA, "Microscopic Superheroes to Help Protect Astronaut Health in Space"
Images
- "Tardígrado campo oscuro con luz polarizada," Brandon Antonio Segura Torres & Priscilla Vieto Bonilla, CC BY-SA 4.0
- "Tardigrade (50594150046)," Philippe Garcelon, CC BY 2.0
- "Richtersius coronifer in active and tun states," Halberg, Jørgensen & Møbjerg, CC BY 4.0
- "Biopan Space Expo 001" (ESA Biopan-5 capsule on display), Hnapel, CC BY-SA 4.0
- "Tardígrado género Milnesium," Brandon Antonio Segura Torres & Priscilla Vieto Bonilla, CC BY-SA 4.0
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