You already knew that tardigrades are weird creatures, but you'll get way more weirdness when Ze Frank explains them. For example, they come in all shapes and colors, including transparent. In this video, we get to watch them eat diatoms and poop crystals, come back to life after being dehydrated, and reproduce by various means. Because that's how tardigrades do.
Watch a tardigrade poop crystals
How to catch tardigrades
I tweeted Miss Cellania's awesome post about how tardigrades poop crystals — possibly the best thing I've yet learned in 2021 — and was talking about it on Twitter with Randy Shulman, when he asked an interesting question … While poking around online to figure that out, I ran across this terrific story in Wired… READ THE REST
Tardigrades glow blue to protect selves from UV light
A species of tardigrade shields itself from UV light using a glowing blue pigment, researchers have discovered. Eswarappa found that like many other tardigrades, these Paramacrobiotus are resistant to ultraviolet radiation. After sitting under a germicidal UV lamp for 15 minutes — ample time to kill most microbes and give humans a skin lesion —… READ THE REST
Tardigrades finally more popular than in 1835
I've been monitoring this for some time and can happily report that Tardigrades (previously at Boing Boing) have finally matched and surpassed the high water mark of popularity that they enjoyed in the 1830s. According to Google Ngram, the string "tardigrade" appears in 0.0000020291% (20.291 per billion) of its 2019 corpus of English texts. Though… READ THE REST
This stylish bracelet transforms into a reusable straw
They are the kind of stats that chill us to the bone, then make us white-hot angry. We use 500 million plastic straws every day. Meanwhile, straws and other discarded plastic, 8 million tons of it, float into our oceans every year. It's estimated the world's beaches are now home to as many as 8.3… READ THE REST
This smart mat might be the smartest dog interpreter you'll ever own
Have you seen those dog communication buttons? Over the past few years, some enterprising dog owners have really opened some eyes with these gadgets, essentially giving smart canines the opportunity to "speak" to their owners as they communicate thoughts and feelings like never before. Of course, our furry friends have been speaking volumes to us… READ THE REST
Scopio's royalty-free library delivers over 400,000 images for under $100
Copyright infringement is no joke — and even if you think something you did years ago can't come back to bite you later, think again. The band Nirvana has been gone for almost 30 years, but they're now being sued over an illustration on band t-shirts and other memorabilia that relatives say was created by… READ THE REST