{"id":243964,"date":"2026-09-12T01:29:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T06:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/this-tiny-animal-can-pass-radiation-damage-to-its-offspring-and-repair-it-over-generations"},"modified":"2026-09-12T01:29:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T06:29:29","slug":"this-tiny-animal-can-pass-radiation-damage-to-its-offspring-and-repair-it-over-generations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/this-tiny-animal-can-pass-radiation-damage-to-its-offspring-and-repair-it-over-generations","title":{"rendered":"This Tiny Animal Can Pass Radiation Damage to Its Offspring \u2014 And Repair It Over Generations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/this-tiny-animal-can-pass-radiation-damage-to-its-offspring-and-repair-it-over-generations.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the mosses and lichens of the world \u2013 the in-between places, where living conditions rapidly fluctuate \u2013 lives a tiny animal with an extraordinary survival skill.<\/p>\n<p>No, not <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/new-tardigrade-discovery-reveals-secrets-of-radiation-resistance\">tardigrades<\/a> \u2013 it\u2019s their much weirder housemate, the bdelloid rotifer.<\/p>\n<p>Just like tardigrades, bdelloid rotifers can dry out almost completely and spring back to life when water returns. They can be blasted with radiation <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41467-023-43075-8\">hundreds of times greater<\/a> than what would kill a human, and live to tell the tale, even while their chromosomes are shattered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the mosses and lichens of the world \u2013 the in-between places, where living conditions rapidly fluctuate \u2013 lives a tiny animal with an extraordinary survival skill. No, not tardigrades \u2013 it\u2019s their much weirder housemate, the bdelloid rotifer. Just like tardigrades, bdelloid rotifers can dry out almost completely and spring back to life when [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243964","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}