Last fall, we reported on the revelation that tardigrades, already known for being indestructible, are also about 16% not-tardigrade. They have quite a bit of foreign DNA in their genome, and scientists aren’t sure why it’s there. Now scientists have revived tardigrades that have been frozen since at least the early 80s. And the tardigrades don’t even seem to have a hangover.
Not long after Han Solo got frozen in carbonite, we were digging up moss at Showa Station in Antarctica. Two adult tardigrades and an egg were found in a sample of moss, and kept frozen for later research, because why not? Now, a trio of Japanese scientists report in the latest issue of Cryobiology (full text available here through ScienceDirect) that all three showed signs of life on the first day after being thawed, and they managed to fully revive one of the adults and the egg.
