Science Says: Tiny ‘water bears’ can teach us about survival

WASHINGTON >> Earth’s ultimate survivors can weather extreme heat, cold, radiation and even the vacuum of space. Now the U.S. military hopes these tiny critters called tardigrades can teach us about true toughness.

These animals are pipsqueaks, only about the size of a period. Under a microscope they look like some combination of chubby bear and single-eyed alien. And they are the closest life gets to indestructible.

No water? No worries. Tardigrades survive. Antarctic cold, 300-degree heat, a lack of oxygen, even punishing radiation doesn’t stop these animals. They are so resilient in the face of so many dangers that scientists think their unique biology may hold clues to how we can make crops more resistant to drought, better preserve blood and medicines, and even make more effective sunscreen.

When the going gets tough for tardigrades, they curl up, dry out and wait. Then, when the environment gets better and they get water, they spring back to life.

Scientists say they can stay dormant for decades before reanimating.

In 2007, scientists put two species of tardigrades in containers, launched them into orbit and opened them up to cold, airless space full of punishing radiation from the sun.

“If you were put into that same thing, you would explode,” said tardigrade expert Randy Miller, a biologist at Baker University in Kansas. They lived and later multiplied, and the offspring from those tardigrade astronauts are still alive, Miller said.

There are as many as 1,200 species of tardigrades.

WILLIAM MILLER VIA AP This undated electron microscope image provided by William Miller of Baker University in March 2019 shows a tardigrade of the class Heterotardigrada, also known as a “water bear.”