{"id":97161,"date":"2019-10-07T19:22:48","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T02:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/the-dna-clouds-that-shield-unkillable-tardigrades-from-radiation"},"modified":"2019-10-07T19:22:48","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T02:22:48","slug":"the-dna-clouds-that-shield-unkillable-tardigrades-from-radiation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/the-dna-clouds-that-shield-unkillable-tardigrades-from-radiation","title":{"rendered":"The DNA clouds that shield unkillable tardigrades from radiation"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

It takes something truly extraordinary, like maybe the death of the Sun<\/a>, to kill the near-indestructible invertebrate known as the tardigrade. Crash-landings on the Moon, a lack of oxygen and conditions in the darkest corners of the ocean don\u2019t appear pose a threat to this critter\u2019s livelihood. Scientists studying these so-called water bears have uncovered a neat trick they employ to endure inhospitable conditions, using a unique protein to generate protective clouds around their DNA.<\/p>\n

Tardigrades measure no more than a millimeter long, but possess an indomitability that would make even nature\u2019s largest and hardiest creatures jealous. Key to their survival is an ability to enter a suspended and extremely dehydrated state of being called anhydrobiosis<\/a>, in which their metabolism is put on hold until the surrounding conditions are more favorable to a regular life.<\/p>\n

This capability has seen tardigrades endure temperatures as high as 150\u00ba C (302\u00ba F) and as low as −272\u00ba C (−457.6\u00ba F). It has seen them studied in the vacuum of space and exist amongst intense pressures at the bottom of the ocean. When an Israeli spacecraft carrying tardigrades crash-landed<\/a> on the Moon in August, it inspired some dramatic headlines around the possibility of the near-indestructible creatures colonizing Earth\u2019s only natural satellite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It takes something truly extraordinary, like maybe the death of the Sun, to kill the near-indestructible invertebrate known as the tardigrade. Crash-landings on the Moon, a lack of oxygen and conditions in the darkest corners of the ocean don\u2019t appear pose a threat to this critter\u2019s livelihood. Scientists studying these so-called water bears have uncovered [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97161","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\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}