1. INVINCIBLE CREATURES- TARDIGRADES About An Incredible Species That Can Survive The Most Perilous Environments

2. INTRODUCTION Tardigrades- amazing creatures. They can survive extreme habitats that would cause humans and other animals to die a very painful death, some of them even beyond Earth. Never more than 0.5 mm long, these creatures did what 6 ft tall humans could never accomplish- they can be brought back to life! As BBC explains, it’s not how these creatures can survive and why, the question is, why have we never evolved to do the same. They can survive space, extreme heat, extreme cold, large amounts of radiation, great amounts of geological pressure, and without water. Turns out, other creatures can do some of these things, but all of them?- doubtful. This ancient species has been able to do what we never could…

3. WORDS TO KNOW!!! Alpha Gamma & and ultraviolet radiation- two types of radiation that would kill humans if they came into high contact with it. Water Bear – Another name for tardigrade. Tun- a process that tardigrades can undergo in which they retract their head and legs. Trehalose- a chemical that some tardigrades make in order to help with water loss. Cryptobiosis- ( zoology ) a temporary state in an organism in which metabolicac tivity is absent or undetectable- www.dictionary.comwww.dictionary.com Desiccation- the act or process of desiccating or the state of being or becoming desiccated; especially : a complete or nearly complete deprivation of moisture (as by vaporization or by evaporation) or of water not chemically combined : dehydration- www.merriam-webster.com/dehydrationwww.merriam-webster.com/

4. ARTICLE 1 Article 1, “Tardigrades are so tough, they can survive outer space,” was from www.BBC.com, published on 3/12/15 was presented by Jasmine Fox-Skelly. It first explained how humans would die in space and tiny creatures called Tardigrades could live. In 2007, tardigrades were put in a satellite that blasted off of Earth, after the satellite was brought back, it was found that most of the tardigrades survived and some had even laid eggs. These creatures are tiny and feed on algae and lichens. Fossils of these creatures have dated back to 500 million years ago, during the Cambrian period. Many scientists such as Johann August Ephraim Goeze, Lazzaro Spallanzi, and Anton van Leeuwenhoek have observed these creatures over the years. In 1998, zoologist Tina Franceschi re-animated tardigrades that were in moss samples for a museum that was 120 years old, by letting the creatures have contact with water. She claimed to have seen a leg move when she gave the dried tardigrade water. Similarly, dried tardigrades from 1995 were brought back to life in 8 years. When these creatures lack water, they can enter something called a “Tun.” Scientist H. Baumann found that they retract their head and legs and since lack of water can fragment DNA, antioxidants are created, so they can fix the DNA after the tardigrade comes out of tun. Some species of tardigrades create a sugar called trehalose which stabilizes substances and can protect lipids and cell membranes. These creatures can withstand scorching heat up to 151 °C and freezing colds up to -272.8 °C, which is so cold that such temperatures cannot be naturally found on Earth, but can only be created in labs. Ice would normally rip apart DNA, killing organisms, but these organisms unlike certain fish which create ant-freeze proteins, tardigrades can protect itself, or BBC said that they repair themselves. In addition to this, tardigrades can survive high amounts of alpha-gama radiation and ultraviolet radiation- this they can actually do without the tun. These organisms withstand high pressure as well, the deepest part of the see is the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, located in the Pacific. That location has a pressure of 100 mega Pascal's, and tardigrades can tolerate up to 6 times that. Scientists think that, rather than having numerous tricks, tardigrades might have a few, since many of these conditions seem to have similarities. Radiation, extreme temperatures, dehydration,and high pressure all maim the DNA and other parts of cells. To help the DNA issue, which is for radiation and dehydration, tardigrades need to make antioxidants and fix the deoxyribonucleic acids (DNA). Tun seems to help in water loss,and pressure, but the tardigrades can survive the other conditions while being alive and active. The risk of the tun is that since they are inactive, they are prone to carnivorous consumption. But ultimately, the tardigrades of prehistoric times seem aquatic and not so good at surviving, it is when these creatures came to land that they evolved in such ways. These creatures aren’t odd for being this way, in fact the real thing is that we and other animals are extremely vulnerable, the question is: why have we failed to evolve in such great ways? And that may never be known. www.BBC.com

5. IMAGES Of TARDIGRADES

6. ARTICLE 2 Article 2 was, “ABSURD CREATURE OF THE WEEK: THE INCREDIBLE CRITTER THAT’S TOUGH ENOUGH TO SURVIVE IN SPACE” was on www.wired.com, was written by Matt Simon, and was published on 3/21/14. Article 2 explained how the tardigrades also known as the water bear, use a trick called cryptobiosis, and that a tardigrade can nearly halt it’s metabolism and reduce to 3% of it’s normal water content. That is called desiccation. It talked about how the water bears could come back to life after nearly a decade after they dried up. It explained how while these creatures can survive obscure conditions that don’t even exist on Earth, they don’t typically search for weird conditions in which to live in. The article mentioned the water bears mouth called a stylet. Apparently, growing water bears in labs is extremely hard, but a random guy in a shed in England, figured out how to master growing them, and decided to sell them for school experiments, but biologist Bob Goldstein at the University of North Carolina, got his hands on them and did research. The article went on to discuss how water bears can survive at cold temperatures that would cause matter itself to go nuts. They already know that one trick that the water bears uses is trehalose, which is like glass that replaces the water to keep the water bear alive. The author believed that more studies will be done on the topic, and that it could lead to great things such as, using the water bears abilities to survive dried out at room temperature to make vaccines that don’t need to be chilled.www.wired.com

7. COMPARISON Article 1 Article 1 was extremely long. But it had valuable information. It was from www.bbc.com so it was very reliable, and it contained facts and statistics. Though it was long, you will see that most of the information served an imperative role in thoroughly explaining the tardigrades and what they could do. This article included many pictures as well. www.bbc.com Article 2 Article 2 was of a decent size, but a big chunk is irrelevant information. I haven’t ever heard of this website before (www.wired.com), so I don’t know it’s reliability. The information was there, but a lot of it was based on the author’s opinion. It did contain quotes from an expert though. It contained a video, but it didn’t help in better understanding the context of the article.www.wired.com

8. Venn Diagram Article 1Article 2 Long From a reliable website Many pictures Facts and statistics Important and relevant information Normal size Wasteful info Pictures serve no purpose Video is there, but doesn’t help in understanding the topic Opinions Quotes- expert opinions

9. …MY CHOICE… If I were to recommend one of the two articles to a friend, I would recommend Article 1. It contained lots of useful information and painted a very clear picture about it. The article explained how many conditions the tardigrade can survive in. It touched on the diet of the tardigrades and what they look like. The article included many pictures of very nice quality to help visualize the context. Article 2 was shorter and got some key details down, it didn’t explain that much. The article included many opinions as well, from the author. Some of the info was useless though. The beginning- which I left out of the summary- talked of how a guy and three cronies tried to kill a bar’s deepest alcoholic, and how the guy survived many of the attacks, and how that durability leads to the topic of tardigrades. The gist makes sense, but it gets really alcoholic when you’re talking of a great find and you hear about a murder plot and an alcoholic- which sort of makes you question whether or not you clicked on the right link.

10. CONCLUSION… Tardigrades are incredible creatures. They can survive many conditions that can cause humans to die an instant. Their abilities hold the potential to be used for great things in the future. In the end when you think about it the author of the BBC article was right, it’s not that these creatures are odd to be such extraordinary survivors, it’s that we are naturally weak species which evolved an amazing capacity to hold knowledge, unlike most species, but didn’t evolve numerous survival skills such as certain species did. Either way though, tardigrades are incredible creatures…

11. MLA CITATIONS Article 1- Fox-Skelly, Jasmine. “Tardigrades are so tough they can survive outer space.” bbc.com. bbc.com, 12 March. 2015. web. 15 March. 2015 Article 2- Simon, Matt. “ABSURD CREATURE OF THE WEEK: THE INCREDIBLE CREATURE THAT’S TOUGH ENOUGH TO SURVIVE SPACE.” wired.com. wired.com, 12 March. 2014. web. 15 March. 2015

12. INVINCIBLE CREATURES-TARDIGRADES AN Octo_Lion PRODUCTION

13. THANKS FOR WATCHING TARDIGRADES! ARTICLES FROM www.bbc.comwww.bbc.com AND www.wired.comwww.wired.com MADE UTILIZING PowerPoint 2007 ALL IMAGES FROM www.google.com www.google.com PRESENTATION ON THE TOPIC OF TARDIGRADES THANK YOU FOR WATCHING! HAVE A NICE DAY