By Jen Viegas, Seeker | July
29, 2017 08:10am ET
Tardigrades, also known as water
bears, are less than a fraction of an inch in length, yet they are believed to
be Earth's toughest, hardiest animals. They are virtually indestructible.
Tardigrades have the ability to withstand complete dehydration. Once
desiccated, they have been frozen in blocks of ice, exposed to radiation, and
sent into the vacuum of space, and yet they still usually spring back to life
when water becomes available again.
New genetic research, published
in the journal PLOS Biology, reveals how tardigrades achieve such
resurrections after drying to a crisp. The authors now even believe that alien
life forms could possess this remarkable ability.
"If life exists on other
planets, and it is water-based, then those organisms that live out of water
will evolve to resist extreme events, including the threat of drying out,"
said co-author Mark Blaxter of the University of Edinburgh's Institute of
Evolutionary Biology.
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