“Water bear” Survives In Space, Nakedly
What is “water bear”?
Quoted from Wikipedia:
Tardigrades (commonly known as water bears) form the phylum Tardigrada, part of the superphylum Ecdysozoa. They are small, water-dwelling, segmented animals with eight legs. Tardigrades were first described by Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773 (kleiner Wasserbär = little water bear). The name Tardigrada means “slow walker” and was given by Spallanzani in 1777. The biggest adults may reach a body length of 1.5 mm, the smallest below 0.1 mm. Freshly hatched larvae may be smaller than 0.05 mm.
More than 1000 species of tardigrades have been described. Tardigrades occur over the entire world, from the high Himalayas (above 6,000 m), to the deep sea (below 4,000 m) and from the polar regions to the equator.
The most convenient place to find tardigrades is on lichens and mosses. Other environments are dunes, beaches, soil and marine or freshwater sediments, where they may occur quite frequently (up to 25,000 animals per litre). Tardigrades often can be found by soaking a piece of moss in spring water.[3]
Tardigrades are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. Some can survive temperatures close to absolute zero[4], temperatures as high as 151 °C (303 °F), 1,000 times more radiation than any other animal[5], nearly a decade without water, and even the vacuum of space.[6]
Isn’t it amazing? Other species, creatures can do so much more than human, and they are just so much stronger physically. What do we, human, have? Maybe it is just our brain. But too bad, some people don’t even use it.
‘Water bear’ survives naked in space
