[Taxacom] Space hopping tardigrades...

[Tony Rees]

Hi Karen,

Well the trail leads to this (on
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?qÊche:lb0M5___ai8J:https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kbbxbw/meet-the-guy-who-hunts-space-bears-in-rural-virginia-video&hl=en&gl=au&strip=1&vwsrc=0
):

"These microscopic creatures, whose name comes from the German for “slow
walker,� and who are sometimes called “water bears,� after their bear-like
gait, are biological oddities. While their nervous system looks and acts
like us, they are wholly different and can survive in extreme situations
that almost no other living organism can – including space.

Beginning in 2007, biologists sent these little suckers up to the space
station (along with other so-called extremophiles) and found that
tardigrades can survive the vacuum of space and the life-zapping radiation
of the sun. Other experiments have shown that adult tardigrades can survive
both extreme pressures and temperatures, ranging from -459 degrees
Fahrenheit (-273 Celsius) up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit (149 Celsius). Even
if recent DNA and RNA sequencing show that tardigrades are the sister group
to arthropods <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropod> and Onychophora
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychophora>, their evolutionary lineage is
unclear. Some have even theorized – cue the *X Files* music – that
tardigrades came from another planet, and rode to Earth on space debris."


Does not say who are the "some have theorized", though...


Of course, I might actually be a giant lizard from the planet Zog in human
form. But the balance of evidence says, probably not.


Cheers - Tony
Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
https://about.me/TonyRees


On Mon, 23 Sep 2019 at 18:27, Karen Wilson <Karen.Wilson at rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au>
wrote:

> This is possibly because of the publicity about tardigrades surviving
> being sent into space, Tony.
> See, for example,
> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-does-the-tiny-waterbear-survive-in-outer-space-30891298/
> where it says an amateur enthusiast has postulated that they might have
> evolved somewhere other than on Earth - a view that has been discounted by
> others knowledgeable in the field.
> An article in Popular Science discussed this further -
> https://www.popsci.com/tardigrades-on-the-moon-alive/
>
> Cheers
> Karen W
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________________________________________
>
> Karen L. Wilson AM  |  Secretary, General Committee, International Code of
> Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi and Plants
> Honorary Research Associate  |  National Herbarium of New South Wales
> Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney NSW
> 2000, Australia
> phone +61-2-9231 8137  |  email karen.wilson at rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au  |
> website www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of
> Tony Rees via Taxacom
> Sent: Monday, 23 September 2019 2:56 PM
> To: taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Subject: [Taxacom] Space hopping tardigrades...
>
> Dear Taxacomers,
>
> Just spotted this, in an otherwise generally good popular science magazine
> here, spruiking "AQUILA Children’s Magazine - the ultimate intelligent read
> for inquisitive kids"
>
> From the Aquila website (https://www.aquila.co.uk/) :
> "Meet the humble tardigrade, an 8-legged micro-animal that may have
> arrived on our planet by meteorite 520 million years ago!"
>
> WTF??? Do they know something other people don't?
>
> Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
> https://about.me/TonyRees
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