These creepy water bear things will outlive us all
While humans are beginning to figure out how to get the hell off this planet we're destroying, these tiny water bear creatures called tardigrades have evidently been evolving to survive whatever earthly calamity comes their way.
A study published Friday in a journal called Scientific Reports says tardigrades can survive pretty much anything.
Three astrophysicists wanted to see what might be able to kill off the resilient microscopic creatures, so they ran some insane-sounding theoretical tests. The physicists threw gamma rays, asteroids and supernovae at the tardigrades, and the little guys pretty much hung around, according to the mathematical models used in the experiment.
The physicists threw gamma rays, asteroids and supernovae at the tardigrades.
Vanquishing tardigrades would, according to the results, require a disastrous event large enough to be nearly unimaginable. It would take, for example, an asteroid much, much larger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs -- so big it would turn the Earth's water into gas. It would take, for example, the sun engulfing our planet.
Tardigrades can stand epic disasters because they've evolved to handle radiation, extreme heat, insane cold, and even living in space. But this is where scientists a bit more familiar with animals start to quibble with the findings of the physicists.
Calling "tardigrade" an animal isn't the same as calling an African elephant an animal. There are more than 1,000 different species of tardigrades, and though some have evolved to survive in ridiculous conditions, it's not as if each tardigrade can survive an extreme dose of radiation.
But some of them certainly might. If we're going to try to figure out how to survive on this planet, perhaps we can learn something.
Topics Animals
Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
