Comments on: Tardigrade is plump, loveable

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 03:58:00 +0000

Stories like this make me glad I impulse-bought a microscope.

By: An Infinitude of Tortoises

An Infinitude of Tortoises — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:26:00 +0000

Happiness is a wet tardigrade.

By: feetleet

feetleet — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 04:05:00 +0000

And think of future rovers. Landing on a topsoil made of kitten hugs.

By: feetleet

feetleet — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 04:02:00 +0000

Not to be confused with the ‘water baby’.

By: sean

sean — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 03:08:00 +0000

Well thanks to your photo I presume a hand-made fabric facsimile will soon be available on Etsy.

By: Incipient Madness

Incipient Madness — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 02:39:00 +0000

My plan for terraforming? Keep bombing the planet with tardigrades, they will find a way.

By: chenille

chenille — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 01:53:00 +0000

In fact, a tun is a large barrel for brewing, which gives us the word ton. The sealed-up tardigrades were thought to be a little like bit like casks, you see.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 01:53:00 +0000

Tun’s also a unit of liquid measure and a cask.

By: taj

taj — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 01:39:00 +0000

I love learning about new things like this. And they always come with new words, too. (But this is what it leads to:

Brother: T*U*N? On a triple word score? Tun’s not even a word.

Me: Yes it is. It’s what you call a tardigrade in its cryptobiostatic state.

Brother: (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

By: wirrbeltier

wirrbeltier — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:48:00 +0000

These beasts can even withstand the cold vacuum of space, and apparently, interstellar radiation. At least in their dormant form. But still… Outer f*cking space! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrades#Physiology

Also, both links work for me. Weird… Maybe the sites are blacklisted somewhere or have been inadvertently DDOS’d by the boingers?

By: Repurposed

Repurposed — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:24:00 +0000

It looks like a nightmarish divan with hands.

By: B Goldstein

B Goldstein — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:20:00 +0000

Yep, they’ve been reported to survive electron microscopy… at least briefly…
http://tinyurl.com/tardigradeSEM

By: Gyrofrog

Gyrofrog — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 23:46:00 +0000

Yeah, well they deserve it anyway, little bloodsuckers… (says the man who lives in the woods)

By: $19428857

$19428857 — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 23:44:00 +0000

Well, he’s…he’s, ah…probably pining for the fjords.

By: chenille

chenille — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 23:01:00 +0000

That’s another thing that seems to be popularly confused. When tardigrades form a resting tun, they become very hard to destroy…but that doesn’t mean the active animals are.

@fuzzyfuzzyfungus:disqus : That’s very interesting, but since it’s being reported as something new in a 2012 paper, I’m sure it doesn’t apply to most images.

By: Hanglyman

Hanglyman — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:57:00 +0000

Dead? I guess that explains why I’m not seeing it over at Cute Overload.

By: chellberty

chellberty — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:45:00 +0000

I want a upsidedown Tardigrade couch.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:44:00 +0000

Works for me, too.

By: fuzzyfuzzyfungus

fuzzyfuzzyfungus — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:10:00 +0000

I don’t know whether tardigrades are tough enough to take it; but some ticks have been observed moving about inside the electron microscope, and showing only 50% mortality two weeks after a half hour in a vacuum being bombarded with electron beams…

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0032676#

By: Joel Risberg

Joel Risberg — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:43:00 +0000

Someday he’ll be a beautiful butterfly.

http://www.alicia-logic.com/capsimages/bl_036LiveBait.jpg

By: Felton / Moderator

Felton / Moderator — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:39:00 +0000

Miracle Max can clear that right up.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:36:00 +0000

Don’t worry, it’s only temporarily dead.

By: Ian Wood

Ian Wood — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:34:00 +0000

Dead? Dead?! How can it be dead? It’s nigh-invulnerable!

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:30:00 +0000

Works for me. Methinks you gots a firewall issue.

[EDIT to add: come to think of it, that seems unlikely. Tardigrades should be able to pass through a wall of fire unscathed.]

By: Marja Erwin

Marja Erwin — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:22:00 +0000

Server not found

Firefox can’t find the server at tardigrades.bio.unc.edu.

By: Maggie Koerth-Baker

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:12:00 +0000

I’m showing them working. Are they still broken for you?

By: Metro

Metro — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:06:00 +0000

Hardly is the key

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:01:00 +0000

Never mind, I should have known someone already beat me to it.

By: chenille

chenille — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:01:00 +0000

In my opinion, they’re quite cute in motion, like stubby caterpillars. This one can’t be, though, because like all electron microscope subjects it is dead. Which rather limits its cuteness in my view.

The links are not working for me. As far as the place on the evolutionary tree being up for debate, though, that seems exaggerated. Nearly everyone agrees they are closest to arthropods and onychophores, and if the precise arrangement might be unclear, that’s still more certainty than for many of the other animal phyla.

By: Bersl

Bersl — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:56:00 +0000

I am so very very glad that this is not showing this thing in motion.