[BenLurkin]

AP/Bob Goldstein/Vicki Madden

[tophat9000]

look it’s Michael Moore’s as a baby... aww how cute

[MarchonDC09122009]

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.

[shibumi]

And the BLatting OG says:

"Mommy?!?"

[Ken H]

[Bob434]

[[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

[80skid]

Headline made me laugh.

[kanawa]

On the shelves in time for Christmas.

[Viking2002]

I've seen pics of these little fellas before - they look like a cross between a caterpillar and an overstuffed sofa. Too bad they're so small. I bet they'd make a great domestic pet. Bet those claws would give a cat a run for it's money on the furniture, though.

[sphinx]

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.

[XEHRpa]

Looks like a love seat from Ikea.

[TruthWillWin]

An example of how life 1st got to earth?

[backwoods-engineer]

Lamarck would approve.

[Joe 6-pack]

True Facts About the Sea Pig

[AdmSmith]

Like every other living thing, this little creature can fall victim to merciless parasites.

Read the horror story here:
http://dailyparasite.blogspot.se/2014/08/ballocephala-sphaerospora.html

and the result:

Illustration by Lizzie Harper of Ballocephala sphaerospora that has infected a tardigrade.

[JoeProBono]

[Koracan]

Not so tough after all.

....a living tardigrade that's not in the cryptobiotic state is actually pretty fragile.
If you stuck a living, active tardigrade directly into liquid nitrogen, boiling water, your own stomach acid, etc. etc., you'd kill it instantly.
Your own immune defenses would make short work of any tardigrade that got into your bloodstream.
Tardigrades can get attacked by viruses and bacteria and fungi and predatory nematodes, and they can be physically damaged as well.
There are lots of things that can kill them.