{"id":212256,"date":"2025-04-23T21:05:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T02:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/scientists-have-found-a-way-to-tattoo-tardigrades"},"modified":"2025-04-23T21:05:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T02:05:30","slug":"scientists-have-found-a-way-to-tattoo-tardigrades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/scientists-have-found-a-way-to-tattoo-tardigrades","title":{"rendered":"Scientists have found a way to \u2018tattoo\u2019 tardigrades"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-have-found-a-way-to-tattoo-tardigrades.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you haven\u2019t heard of a tardigrade before, prepare to be wowed. These clumsy, eight-legged creatures, nicknamed water bears, are about half a millimeter long and can survive practically anything: freezing temperatures, near starvation, high pressure, radiation exposure, outer space and more. Researchers reporting in the journal <i>Nano Letters<\/i> took advantage of the tardigrade\u2019s nearly indestructible nature and gave the critters tiny \u201ctattoos\u201d to test a microfabrication technique to build microscopic, biocompatible devices.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThrough this technology, we\u2019re not just creating micro-tattoos on tardigrades\u2014we\u2019re extending this capability to various living organisms, including bacteria,\u201d explains Ding Zhao, a co-author of the <a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/10.1021\/acs.nanolett.5c00378\" target=\"_blank\">paper<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Microfabrication has revolutionized electronics and photonics, creating micro-and nanoscale devices ranging from microprocessors and solar cells to biosensors that detect food contamination or cancerous cells. But the technology could also advance medicine and <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/biomedical+engineering\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">biomedical engineering<\/a>, if researchers can adapt <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/microfabrication+techniques\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">microfabrication techniques<\/a> to make them compatible with the biological realm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you haven\u2019t heard of a tardigrade before, prepare to be wowed. These clumsy, eight-legged creatures, nicknamed water bears, are about half a millimeter long and can survive practically anything: freezing temperatures, near starvation, high pressure, radiation exposure, outer space and more. Researchers reporting in the journal Nano Letters took advantage of the tardigrade\u2019s nearly [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,1506,4,1633],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-food","category-nanotechnology","category-solar-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}