AP/Bob Goldstein/Vicki Madden
Posted on 11/25/2015 9:32:36 PM PST by BenLurkin
The tiny animals - otherwise known as water bears - are famous for surviving in the vacuum of space, among other impossibly hostile environments. But they just got even weirder: According to research published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tardigrades get a massive chunk of their DNA from other organisms.
"Foreign" DNA is not a foreign concept to scientists. Through a process called horizontal gene transfer, any organism can theoretically swap genes with another. It happens among bacteria all the time, which is how antibiotic resistance spreads so quickly. But it's less common in more complex, multicellular organisms. Most animals end up with a genome that's over 99 percent homegrown.
The tardigrade blows these averages - as well as the previous record holder for foreign DNA, the rotifer - out of the water. With a genome that's one-sixth foreign, the water bear has around double the outside contributions of a rotifer.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
look it’s Michael Moore’s as a baby... aww how cute
Saw this article in the news yesterday.
These creatures have Amazing survival capabilities, like no other living thing.
These Extremophiles are technically capable of living forever if allowed to go thru regular dormancy cycles.
"Mommy?!?"
Too cute to be his.
(and I find it somewhat frightening that Cthulhu is in the spell checker word list)
[[Through a process called horizontal gene transfer, any organism can theoretically swap genes with another.]]
Which only, according to my understanding, happens between the same kinds of species- not between unrelated species kinds because unrelated species kinds have several layers of protectiosn which prevent such horizontal transfers whereas related species kinds have the necessary info to receive and utilize dna from their own kind
Cthulhu is never quite the same Demonic Old One after he has his snack...
Headline made me laugh.
On the shelves in time for Christmas.
OMG...is that a real video of one?
How stinking *cute*!
They remind me of manatees.
Those grasping claws are a dead giveaway. This is the ancestral creature from which is descended the modern Gimmedat. A clearer proof of devolution would be hard to imagine.
Looks like a love seat from Ikea.
All told, the little water bears have about 6,000 genes that come from outside sources, mainly bacteria. Plants, fungi, and Archaea also made appearances in the tardigrade genome.
Unless bacteria, plants, fungi and tardigrade are all the " same kinds of species" then this would appear to be something new mixing animal, plant, bacteria and fungi. Archaea are already a strange lot and are themselves extremophiles.
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