search
tardigrade
Trends
- 1Microscope footage shows a tardigrade, nature's toughest survivor●This is a tardigrade — the water bear — going about its day under the microscope. Hard to believe this chubby little blo
Microscope footage of a tardigrade, or water bear, is circulating online. The tiny animal, barely a millimetre long, is shown moving and feeding under magnification. People are sharing the clip for its near-unbelievable resilience: tardigrades can survive the vacuum of space, radiation hundreds of times the human lethal dose, and years without water by drying into a dormant state called a tun.
- 2Tardigrade Survival Proteins Show Convergent Evolution, Study Finds▼Water Bears’ Survival Secrets Point to Convergent Evolution in Stress Proteins
New research into tardigrades, the microscopic animals known as water bears, suggests their remarkable resilience to extreme conditions stems from stress-protective proteins that evolved independently along similar paths in different lineages. The findings point to convergent evolution in the molecular machinery that lets these creatures survive drying, freezing and radiation, offering clues for biotechnology and stress-tolerance research.