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"Water Bears" First Animals to Survive Trip Into Space Naked
Adam Korbitz writes "New Scientist and Science Daily are reporting the results of an intriguing experiment in which scientists launched tardigrades or 'water bears' — tiny invertebrates about one millimeter long — into space onboard the European Space Agency's FOTON-M3 spacecraft. After 10 days in the vacuum of space, the satellite returned to Earth and the tardigrades were recovered. The tardigrades survived the vacuum just fine, but exposure to the Sun's ultraviolet radiation proved deadly for most of the water bears. However, some did survive. The tardigrades are the first animals to have survived such an experiment, a feat previously achieved only by lichens and bacteria."
After RTFA /shock, the focus seems to be not on the fact they survived in space but more the fact that they survived being dosed repeteadly with huge amounts of radiation, without any apparent damage to the DNA structure.
I don't see any reason why a lifeform that has evolved to survive in space should necessarily be better equipped to then survive elsewhere - any species that suddenly transitions from one environment to a vastly different one is going to have a hard time surviving. When a species adapts it doesn't necessarily keep all of its old abilities as well as the new ones, otherwise we'd all be able to breathe underwater!
which is totally what she said
For most species survival of extreme conditions is not the same thing as flourishing. This is a very interesting experiment and does open up quite a few possibilities for future research.
If scientists were attempting to encourage beneficial mutations to make it more likely to survive a space environment this can be done on the ground, in a laboratory. It is not difficult to create a vacuum environment, bathe it with UV light and high energy particle and put a petri dish in the middle of this environment.
To me it all smacks of the comic book and recent movies of "The Fantastic Four". Superior powers and prowess does not appear suddenly when exposed to some variant of radiation from space. In most cases, biological life-forms either 1). Die, 99.999% the time 2). Mutate, leaving a sickly, short-lived organism 3). Mutate but in an unexpected manner.
Scientists have been doing this sort of research of a century. It is the basis of many vaccines. (live-attenuated).
From this we could end up with a bacteria that would tolerate a near-space environment like mars with it's much diminished atmosphere and non-existent geomagnetic field. But what have we accomplished in the end?
Can we say that we created a bacteria that contaminated... err, colonized a different planet? I wonder if the same thought was in the head of primitive man when he threw the first coconut stuffed with a note in it, into the Pacific ocean.
Tisha Hayes
Suggested list of headlines that do not suck:
"Tardigrades First Animals to Survive the Vacuum of Space"
"'Water Bears" First Animals to Withstand Exposure to Naked Space"
"First Animal to Survive the Vacuum of Space"
Come on, Timothy -- Naked tardigrades? I trust you can do better than that...
It should be noted that just becuase this species can SURVIVE exposure to space doesn't mean they can THRIVE in it.
This species is capable of entering a state of suspended animation that renders it rather resistant to extreme heat and cold, dehydration and hard radiation.
It's been a long time.