RTFA: http://www.alphagalileo.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=r…

“For the first time ever, animals are now being exposed to an unmitigated space environment, with both vacuum conditions and cosmic radiation,” says the ecologist Ingemar Jönsson, a researcher at Kristianstad University in Sweden. One of the aims of sending the tiny tardigrades into space is to find out whether they can cope with the rugged conditions in space, which has previously been predicted but never tested. Tardigrades are one of the most tolerant animals on earth when it comes to dehydration and radiation, a characteristic that would be required in order to survive a trip through space. But the project is also part of research into the fundamental physiology of the tardigrade, primarily of the mechanisms that underlie their ability to withstand desiccation.

Insane, creepy, invincible bugs… into space! To colonice other planets!

Related posts:

1. Technology Review: Weather Engineering in China
2. Armchair science: Use BOINC framework to analyze whale/bird songs
3. FOXNews.com - Bigfoot Hunters Press Conference Reveals… Little - Science News | Science
4. DataPortability.org - Share and remix data using open standards
5. FT.com / Home UK / UK - The irony of a web without science

This entry was posted by farkinga at 2007/10/02/1056. Tags:bugs, sortof cool, sortof creepy, space
and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.