Enlarge / SEM Micrograph of a tardigrade, extra generally often known as a water bear or “moss piglet.” (credit score: Cultura RM Unique/Gregory S. Paulson/Getty Photographs)
There’s not often time to put in writing about each cool science-y story that comes our manner. So this 12 months, we’re as soon as once more operating a particular Twelve Days of Christmas sequence of posts, highlighting one science story that fell by way of the cracks in 2020, every day from December 25 by way of January 5. At present: the superb physics of the common-or-garden tardigrade.
Is there nothing the tiny tardigrade cannot do? Extra generally often known as water bears (or “moss piglets”), these superb micro-animals can survive within the harshest circumstances: excessive strain, excessive temperature, radiation, dehydration, hunger—even publicity in outer house. That hardiness makes them a favourite case research for scientists.
Earlier this 12 months, researchers at Rockefeller College examined the water bear’s distinctive gait and concluded the creature’s motion resembles that of bugs 500,000 instances their dimension, based on a paper revealed in August within the Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences.
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