Can a tardigrade survive a bullet?

Now, researchers have subjected tardigrades, microscopic creatures affectionately known as water bears, to impacts as fast as a flying bullet. And the animals survive them, too—but only up to a point. The test places new limits on their ability to survive impacts in space—and potentially seed life on other planets.
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What kills a tardigrade?

What kills tardigrades? Research shows that tardigrades can be killed by exposure to hot water for an extended period of time. One study showed that one hour of exposure to water at 82.7 °C (180.9 °F) can kill a tardigrade in its “tun” state, where it goes into suspended animation and becomes hard to destroy.
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What can tardigrades survive?

These animals have the remarkable ability to survive extremes including very low temperatures, high levels of radiation and exposure to chemicals that are harmful to other forms of life. Tardigrades have even been found to survive the harsh conditions of outer space.
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Can tardigrades survive being crushed?

You can boil them, bake them, deep-freeze them, crush them, dehydrate them, or even blast them into space. It doesn't matter—tardigrades can survive practically anything. These eight-legged aquatic animals may be small, but they're nearly indestructible.
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Would a tardigrade survive a nuke?

Which organism can survive nuclear radiation? Certain extremophiles, such as the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans and the tardigrades, can withstand large doses of ionizing radiation on the order of 5,000 Gy.
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Tardigrades Are the Toughest Animal on Earth that can Survive Space and Volcanoes | The Dodo



What are tardigrades weaknesses?

Of all of those, the heating is their most conspicuous weakness, although they can certainly put up with a lot more than most creatures. They get away with these feats because they are able to almost completely stop their metabolism (down to far below one-thousandth of normal) and to lose 99% of their water mass.
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Can water bears survive lava?

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are hardy life forms that can survive extreme temperatures—from volcanic vents on the ocean floor to the frigid climes of Antarctica.
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What is the most unkillable animal?

Tardigrades are practically unkillable. The microscopic creatures, commonly known as "water bears," can tolerate stress that would end most other organisms. The vacuum of space? No problem for the moss piglets.
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What happens if you shoot a tardigrade?

But a recent experiment stress tested these death-defying creatures in a new way: by firing tardigrades from a gun. Tardigrades survived smashing into targets at speeds up to about 825 meters per second, researchers report online May 11 in Astrobiology. But speedier water bears blew apart on impact.
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How old is the oldest tardigrade?

The oldest remains of modern tardigrades are those of Milnesium swolenskyi, belonging to the living genus Milnesium known from a Late Cretaceous (Turonian) aged specimen of New Jersey amber, around 90 million years old.
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Can tardigrades live forever?

There is also some confusion between the tardigrade's sheer hardiness and its ability to live forever. In reality, tardigrades only have a lifespan of a few months – in the active state. This can (and is) interrupted by long periods where they are (to all intents and purposes) “dead.” But more on that later.
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Can tardigrades have babies?

Mating and reproduction

Naturally, tardigrades have unusual mating habits, too. Depending on the species, the animals may reproduce asexually or sexually. In some species, males deposit sperm inside the cuticle of a molting, egg-carrying female during an hour-long mating process.
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Do tardigrades brain?

Tardigrades have a dorsal brain atop a paired ventral nervous system. (Humans have a dorsal brain and a single dorsal nervous system.) The body cavity of tardigrades is an open hemocoel that touches every cell, allowing efficient nutrition and gas exchange with no need for circulatory or respiratory systems.
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Can tardigrade survive alcohol?

Tardigrades can also survive immense pressures, up to six times that on the ocean floor, or even being boiled in alcohol.
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Do tardigrades have a heart?

But they lack frills like a heart, lungs or veins because their body cavity is what's called "open hemocoel," which means that gas and nutrition can move in, out and around efficiently without complex systems [source: Miller].
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Can tardigrades harm humans?

Tardigrades pose no threat to humans. Scientists have yet to identify a species of tardigrade that spreads disease.
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Is there a bulletproof animal?

Yes there are some animals that appear to be bulletproof. Armadillo 'armour' – composed of bony plates known as osteoderms – has been seen to deflect bullets. In one incident, a Texan man was hit in the face when his own bullet bounced back from an armadillo that he tried to shoot.
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Can a tardigrade survive a supernova?

"To our surprise, we found that although nearby supernovas or large asteroid impacts would be catastrophic for people, tardigrades could be unaffected," David Sloan, a co-author of the study and a researcher at Oxford, said in a statement (opens in new tab).
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Why do tardigrades live forever?

Tardigrades are seemingly able to resist radiation and even repair their DNA, which may explain why they're so resilient to radiation's extreme effects, a 2013 PLOS ONE study reported.
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Is there an animal that never dies?

To date, there's only one species that has been called 'biologically immortal': the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii. These small, transparent animals hang out in oceans around the world and can turn back time by reverting to an earlier stage of their life cycle.
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What is the weakest animal alive?

Too Weak to Support Its Own Body Weight: The Jellyfish

Crystal jellies Aequorea victoria, are a bioluminescent hydrozoan jellyfish, or hydromedusa, that is found off the west coast of North America. Almost every living creature on the planet has at least the strength to support its own body and move around.
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What is the toughest animal alive?

The hands down hardest creature is a tardigrade, also known as a waterbear. Less than 1.5mm long, they can dehydrate their bodies to just 1 per cent of their normal water content. Without water, most chemical reactions happen too slowly to harm them and ice crystals can't rupture their cells.
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Do we eat tardigrades?

You can send your tardigrades to space and back, but don't eat one.
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Are tardigrades fireproof?

Too long in the heat wasn't great for tardigrade health and happiness. After 48 hours at 104 F, all tardigrades in the active state died.
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Can tardigrades survive on Mars?

Meteorite impacts on Earth typically arrive at speeds of more than 11 kilometers per second. On Mars, they collide at least at 8 kilometers per second. These speeds are well above the threshold for tardigrades to survive.
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