Category: tardigrade

Meet the water bear or tardigrade. It may not be pretty, but its as close to indestructible as any life-form may ever come. Cool it to a mere 1 degree above absolute zero or -458 F and it lives on. Heat it to 300 F and it lives on. Throw it out into the vacuum of space and it lives on. Irradiate it with hundreds of times the radiation that would kill a human and it lives on. Dehydrate it to 3 percent of its normal water content and it lives on. From Wired: In 1933, the owner of a New York City speakeasy and three cronies embarked on a rather unoriginal scheme to make a quick couple grand: Take out three life insurance policies on the bar’s deepest alcoholic,…