Why Tardigrades Are IMPOSSIBLE To Kill

what's got eight legs can survive at the bottom of the ocean has been to space and lives in your backyard that's right it's beam today's episode is all about our favorite celebrity invertebrate the ever effervescent tardigrade [Music] tardigrades are a part of the phylum tardy grata and the clade Tac Toe pada which also includes the phylum Arthropoda which are essentially every bug you've ever encountered phylum usually contain a very wide variety of creatures that can oftentimes share know immediately discernible traits of one another while Arthropoda includes everything from crabs to spiders to fruit flies and centipedes tardigrades have a whole branch of evolution all to themselves these little invertebrates are composed of five body segments with four trunk segments that each support a pair of legs that end with claws or little fingers the first three sets of legs are what tardigrades used for movement while the last set is used primarily for grasping a substance another matter there are over 1,300 different species of turtle grades comprising three main classes you tardigrade a-- mezzo tartar grata and hetero tartar grata there are differences between the three classes but the one with the most diversity and most significant visual differences is hetero tartar grata who have thick dentate plates covering their backs [Music] exactly German zoologist Johann Auguste Ephraim goes first described tardigrades and named them water bears because they are very commonly found in moist environments and because of their resemblance to obviously bears they're also occasionally referred to as moss piglets for the exact same reasons they're named tardy grata means slow Walker's which was given to them by Italian biologists lazzaro spallanzani typically tardigrades grow to arrange between half a millimeter to a millimeter long so while it's possible to see a tardigrade with the naked eye it would be like trying to read a book that's sitting on the other side of a hockey rink so if you want to find them on your own you're gonna need a microscope finding a tardigrade isn't actually all that hard tardigrades are so prolific that you can find them all over the world they make their homes in three basic environments saltwater freshwater and land no matter where you find them they we'll always be surrounded by water if you want to find these little guys in your own backyard a patch of wet moss is the best place to look simply take a small patch of moss place it in a small dish ideally a petri dish and soak it with water once the moss is thoroughly wet wring out the water in the moss into another dish and then take a look at it under a microscope and while you may not spot a moss piggy on your first try don't lose hope it might take you a few tries to catch one do you have do you have a microscope there's one under my bed I'm gonna okay the fascinating thing about tardigrades is that they have a sort of celebrity status among invertebrates for being my indestructible or even immortal but that's not entirely true it's more accurate to say that they're better adapted to surviving inhospitable environments that would easily kill a human being tardigrades can survive temperatures as low as negative 20 degrees for decades some have even been seen to survive environments as high as 150 degrees Celsius and as cold as negative 270 to degrees Celsius for a few minutes which is absolutely off-the-wall bonkers if you consider that absolute zero a theoretical temperature that could only be achieved by the existential heat death of the entire universe is only one point 15 degrees colder than that tardigrades accomplish this by going into what's called a tun state a form of hibernation in which they dehydrate to almost zero percent water and slow their metabolism to 0.01 percent of normal in this form tardigrades replaced the water content in their cells with a sugar mixture called tardigrade specific intrinsically disordered proteins or tipis which is a bunch of fancy words that mean a substance that tardigrades use to survive stuff but we're not entirely sure how it works all we need to know is that in a ton state using TVP tardigrades can survive without water for up to a decade pressure is equal to 6,000 atmospheres which is six times stronger than the lowest point in the ocean and up to a thousand rays of gamma radiation of which mammals can only survive five researchers are fascinated by these creatures and their survival skills because they may hold secrets to how life might travel through this universe in 2007 the European Space Agency sent samples of ton state tardigrades into low-earth orbit and exposed them to the vacuum of space and to different levels of solar radiation of the samples sent up on the photon m3 mission a vacuum had barely any impact on their survivability however exposure to unbridled solar radiation significantly reduced the viability of revival after returning to the shuttle that isn't to say however that exposure to solar radiation killed all of them in fact 68% of tardigrades exposed to uva and UVB radiation revived themselves within 30 minutes of returning this was groundbreaking since it made many theories of how life came to be on earth plausible not to mention that many of the tardigrades exposed to space laid eggs while still in a vacuum tardigrades theoretically could hide inside asteroids survived descent through an atmosphere in addition to impact on an alien planet and begin reproducing immediately jump-starting life on an otherwise barren planet could they survive on Mount Everest yes the bottom of the ocean yes for fire yes Antarctica yes what about the sac no the Sun is just a billion nuclear bomb blasts going off all at once all the time nothing can survive that tardigrades have not adapted to live in extreme environments so they're not technically extremophiles they're just very good at surviving rapid changes in their habitats the longer they're exposed to extreme environments and the less likely they'll survive it their abilities nonetheless may prove useful to climate researchers like dr. Thomas Boothby PhD assistant professor at the University of Wyoming who specializes in biochemistry and mechanisms of extremo tolerant organisms he writes that if we can understand the nuances of tardigrade survivability we could apply this knowledge to help us stabilize vaccines or to develop stress tolerant crops that can cope with Earth's changing climate he continues arguing that we could also use this knowledge to help protect astronauts from the limits of the human body prolonged missions into space as we saw earlier tardigrades are also especially resilient to radiations effect on cellular DNA tech Icaza Canada a molecular biologist at the University of Tokyo says that tolerance against x-ray is thought to be a side product of the animals adaptation to severe dehydration and this if it's possible to implement the same adaptation in humans could offer safer conditions for workers cleaning up radiation leaks in nuclear reactors in addition to that the ways that tardigrades safeguard their DNA from damage could benefit those undergoing radiation therapy and other cancer treatments understanding the way he keeps his DNA protected could one day be used to help treat cancer so much of this world is hidden to us in the nooks and crannies of the microscope from tardigrades like beam to deadly single-celled eukaryotes there are entire universe is filled with fantastic and beautiful creatures hidden just out of our sight it's just up to us to go out there and find them bro girl I I grab all the boys from the backyard and and let's see if we can find being a friend well these guys are so small why is beat so thick well that's proprietary information of the hillside oh is it 345 already that's right super all right send me your internet quiz yes the care home scientificly chosen you know we found it beneficial too yeah they play until you answer believe me saved you an hour long explanation how did you coordinate this Britain and and how are you taking over Bruce computer computer theft is a serious crime Brendon Braden thank you very much and unlike some of you the mad lads have been keeping organized oh is that new hairstyle great no dashing doesn't it here we totally drivers right kids love anyone and choose yourself crazy slides

Channel: Brew

Views: 732,770

Rating: 4.953793 out of 5

Keywords: tardigrades, toughest animals, moss piglets, water bears, tardigrade, indestructible animal, science explained, terrifying creatures, backyard scientist, cute animals, weird animals

Id: OnIfb4os7JE

Length: 9min 7sec (547 seconds)

Published: Sat May 30 2020