What Do Tardigrades (aka Water Bears) Have in Common with Sleeping Beauty
Tardigrades can survive freezing temperatures without losing vitality. They are adorable and tiny animals, also called \”water bears\” that can adapt to extreme conditions. The tardigrade is very adaptable to harsh environments. Ralph Schill is a professor from the University of Stuttgart. He says that anhydrobiotic tardigrades (dry) can survive without water for years. There was no indication that aging had increased or decreased in a frozen state. In fact, frozen tardigrades do not age.
The water bear, or tardigrade, is a nematode. Water bears have the same gait, but that is about all that links them to bears. Due to their ability to adapt quickly to changing environmental conditions tardigrades can dry out or freeze in extreme heat. Schill says that the tardigrades do not die, but rather go into a deep slumber. When a cell organism freezes or dries up, it experiences different types stress. Even so, they can survive extremes in heat and cold. They do not show any obvious signs of living. The animal’s internal timer may be slowed in this state of relaxation, raising the question as to whether the animal is aging.
Schill and his research team studied the aging of dried tardigrades, which had waited for rain in their habitats for many years. In Grimm Brothers’ fairytales, a princess is shown to be asleep. She awakens 100 years later looking just as young and beautiful as she did when the young prince kissed her. This hypothesis is known as the \”Sleeping Beauty Hypothesis\” because tardigrades look the same in a dried form. Schill explains the internal clock is stopped during inactivity, and restarted once the organism is reactivated. The researcher explained how tardigrades can live for decades, even though their lifespan is usually only a few weeks without rest.
Source:
https://curiosmos.com/what-do-tardigrades-aka-water-bears-have-in-common-with-sleeping-beauty/
