[ad_1]
The toughest creatures on Earth can survive deadly ultraviolet radiation thanks to their glow-in-the-dark fluorescent protective shields.
- Tardigrades, or ‘mossy piglets’, are strange, microscopic animals that live in water
- They can survive extreme temperatures, pressures, and even nuclear radiation.
- A genus found in India has now revealed a defense mechanism against UV rays
- The creatures absorb harmful ultraviolet radiation and turn it into blue light.
- The experts found that they could even transfer some of this protection to other animals.
The toughest creatures on Earth, the tiny tardigrades, include species that can survive deadly ultraviolet radiation by glowing in the dark, according to a study.
Tardigrades, also known as ‘mossy piglets’ or ‘water bears’, are strange, microscopic animals that inhabit water and are capable of surviving in extreme environments.
They can tolerate heats of 300 ° F (150 ° C) in the cold of space, dry out and revive years later, and withstand pressures six times greater than those found in the Mariana Trench.
And a study last year revealed that tough little creatures can even survive the equivalent amount of nuclear radiation to 25 hours in Chernobyl’s ground zero.
However, researchers from India have reported that they have found a new genus, called ‘Paramacrobiotus’, which can also resist germicidal levels of UV exposure.
To do this, it uses a fluorescent protective shield that absorbs harmful ultraviolet radiation and emits it as harmless blue light.
The toughest creatures on Earth, the tiny tardigrades, include species that can survive deadly ultraviolet radiation by glowing in the dark, according to a study. In the image, Paramacrobiotus glows blue
‘Our study showed that Paramacrobiotus specimens […] they exhibit natural fluorescence under ultraviolet light, which protects tardigrades against lethal doses of ultraviolet radiation, ”biochemist Harikumar Suma and colleagues wrote in their paper.
The tiny creature, explained the team from the Indian Institute of Science, ‘has probably evolved this fluorescence mechanism to counteract [the] high ultraviolet radiation from tropical south of India: UV index can reach up to 10. ‘
“The UV dose in this place, Bengaluru, India, on a typical summer day is about four kilojoules per square meter.”
The tardigrades the team studied were isolated from a moss specimen that grew on a concrete wall in their hometown of Bangalore.
The researchers found that when they exposed Paramacrobiotus to ultraviolet radiation for 15 minutes, long enough to kill another tardigrade species, H. exelaris, the new genus not only survived, but surprisingly emitted a blue glow.
When the team coated H. Exelaris and the roundworm, ‘Caenorhabditis elegans’ in fluorescent extracts of Paramacrobiotus, they found that they could transfer some of the protection.
After a few days of UV exposure, half of the treated H. exelaris remained alive despite receiving a dose that should have been lethal.
Tardigrades, also known as ‘mossy piglets’ or ‘water bears’, are strange, microscopic animals that inhabit water and are capable of surviving in extreme environments. In the photo, Paramacrobiotus
Tardigrades can tolerate heats of 300 ° F (150 ° C) to the coldness of space, dry out and revive years later, withstand pressures six times higher than those found in the Mariana Trench, and even withstand the same amount of radiation ionizing to spend 25 hours in Chernobyl Ground Zero
The study builds on previous work showing that substances produced by tardigrades have the potential to protect other organisms from harmful conditions, biologist Łukasz Kaczmarek, who was not involved in the work, told The Guardian.
However, the expert from Poland’s Adam Mickiewicz University added that the team had not identified the exact substance responsible for UV protection, raising the possibility that protective proteins, not fluorescence, are responsible.
“We also do not know if it is a characteristic feature of the studied species or rather of the majority of tardigrades exposed in their natural environment to high doses of UV radiation,” Dr. Kaczmarek told The Guardian.
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Biology Letters.
WHAT ARE THE TARDIGRADAS?
Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are said to be the most indestructible animals in the world.
These small, segmented creatures come in many forms – there are more than 900 species of them – and they are found in all parts of the world, from the highest mountains to the deepest oceans.
Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are said to be the most indestructible animals in the world.
They have eight legs (four pairs) and each leg has four to eight claws that resemble the claws of a bear.
Boil the 1mm creatures, freeze them, dry them, expose them to radiation and they are so tough they will still be alive 200 years later.
An illustration of a tardigrade (water bear) is shown
Water bears can live in temperatures as low as -457 degrees, heat as high as 357 degrees, and 5,700 grays of radiation, when 10-20 grays would kill humans and most other animals.
Tardigrades have been around for 530 million years and survived the dinosaurs.
Animals can also live for a decade without water and even survive in space.
