Scientists discover how the water bear survives in such extreme conditions

by Brett Smith 

Tardigrades, the odd microscopic animals also referred to as water bears, are known for the puppet-like appearance and capacity to persist despite extreme environments and states.

According to a new report in the journal Cell, water bears' uncanny survival ability can be attributed to a unique group of proteins, which the study team called tardigrade-specific intrinsically disordered proteins (TDPs).

The study helps explain why tiny animals are able to withstand harsh radiation, temperatures approaching Absolute Zero, extreme desiccation, and other bizarre circumstances.

"The big takeaway from our study is that tardigrades have evolved unique genes that allow them to survive drying out," study author Thomas Boothby, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said in a statement. "In addition, the proteins that these genes encode can be used to protect other biological material—like bacteria, yeast, and certain enzymes—from desiccation."

The Tardigrade's Big Secret

For some time, it was thought that a glucose known as trehelose gave tardigrades the capability to put up with an extreme lack of water. Trehelose is discovered in a quantity of other organisms that can make it through extreme dessiccation, including yeast and some nematode worms.

However, biochemical analyses of tardigrades have discovered trehelose at low amounts or not at all, and genetic analyses have not shown a gene for the enzyme necessary to make this sugar.

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Survival secret of 'Earth's hardiest animal' revealed

By Nathan Tauger and Victoria Gill BBC Science reporters

20 September 2016

Researchers have discovered a genetic survival secret of Earth's "hardiest animal". 

A gene that scientists identified in these strange, aquatic creatures - called tardigrades - helps them survive boiling, freezing and radiation. 

In future, it could be used to protect human cells, the researchers say.

It was already known that tardigrades, also known as water bears, were able to survive by shrivelling up into desiccated balls.

But the University of Tokyo-led team found a protein that protects its DNA - wrapping around it like a blanket.

The scientists, who published their findings in the journal Nature Communications, went on to grow human cells that produced that same protein, and found that it protected those cells too. 

This, the scientists suggest, means that genes from these "extremophiles", might one day be used to protect living things from radiation - from X-rays, or as a treatment to prevent damage from the Sun's harmful rays. 

Tardigrades are more commonly - and cutely - known as water bears. Scientists had thought that they survived radiation exposure by repairing the damage done to their DNA. But Prof Takekazu Kunieda, of the University of Tokyo, and his colleagues, carried out an eight-year study of a tardigrade genome to pinpoint the source of its remarkable resilience. 

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30-Year Deep Freeze Just Puts Tardigrade in the Mood

 by Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer   |   February 19, 2016 01:17pm ET

After being locked in a deep freeze for more than 30 years, two microscopic creatures called tardigrades have been resuscitated, with one of the adults getting busy with reproduction "immediately" and "repeatedly," scientists reported.

Scientists were even able to revive a tardigrade egg after it spent the past three decades cooling its jets alongside the mature duo in a researcher's freezer.

Their findings shattered the previous preservation and revival record for tardigrades and their eggs, which had been eight years for frozen tardigrades and nine years for dried eggs stored at room temperature.

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