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This Is How Tardigrades Walk, And We Were Not Ready For The Footage
https://www.sciencealert.com ^ | 31 AUGUST 2021 | JACINTA BOWLER

Posted on 08/31/2021 8:35:25 AM PDT by Red Badger

Tardigrades are undoubtedly weird. Dehydrate them into glass, then fire them out of a gun, and once you rehydrate them you can still have a living creature. Their outsides aren't the only thing that's tough either, with scientists finding last year that they also have special DNA armor proteins.

But if we take a step back from their immense capacity for being beaten up, there are many other mysterious things about them. For starters, how do these tiny creatures walk?

After all, they're one of the only animals with soft little bodies like this that can walk, plus they're one of the smallest animals with legs that we know of.

Tardigrade walking on a soft gel. (Nirody et al., PNAS, 2021)

"One of the coolest – and initially most surprising – things about tardigrades walking to me was how... good they were at it," Rockefeller University mechanical biologist Jasmine Nirody wrote on Twitter.

"They have a regular gait, and it looks remarkably like those of much, much larger animals!"

So, Nirody and colleagues recorded walking tardigrades of the Hypsibius dujardini species to analyze their gait and leg coordination, and we get to enjoy the results.

"We didn't force them to do anything. Sometimes they would be really chill and just want to stroll around the substrate," says Nirody. "Other times, they'd see something they like and run towards it."

The team took tardigrades and walked them across different surfaces, finding that their stepping pattern is very similar to insects – despite the two groups being incredibly different sizes and made of completely different stuff.

The team also recorded the little guys trying to walk on smooth glass (they didn't get very far on the smooth surface), and on gels with two different levels of stiffness, to work out how that changed their walk in the different conditions.

"We find that tardigrades adapt their locomotion to a 'galloping' coordination pattern when walking on softer substrates," the team writes in a new paper.

"This strategy has also been observed in arthropods to move efficiently on flowing or granular substrates."

Why tardigrades walk so much like insects is still an open question. The researchers aren't sure if there could be a potential common ancestor with insects, or whether the walking trait evolved separately in both organisms.

The research has been published in PNAS.


TOPICS: History; Outdoors; Pets/Animals; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: godsgravesglyphs; tardigrade; tardigrades; tards
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They also like DISCO............................

1 posted on 08/31/2021 8:35:25 AM PDT by Red Badger
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To: Red Badger

Bookmark


2 posted on 08/31/2021 8:38:34 AM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog. )
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To: Red Badger

Hanna Barbara is the designer.

(Anyhow, this is kind of bs. It’s modeled, ie animated. It’s approximation).


3 posted on 08/31/2021 8:40:32 AM PDT by ifinnegan ( Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: Red Badger

Oh, I forgot to add it’s totally cool also.


4 posted on 08/31/2021 8:48:38 AM PDT by ifinnegan ( Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: Red Badger

Don’t forget that the Israelis contaminated the moon with them.


5 posted on 08/31/2021 8:51:16 AM PDT by algore ( )
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To: ifinnegan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade


6 posted on 08/31/2021 8:51:30 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

Tardigrade walking



'Tards walking



Turd dancing

7 posted on 08/31/2021 8:53:37 AM PDT by A Formerly Proud Canadian (Ceterum autem censeo Justinius True-dope-us esse delendam)
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To: Red Badger

Ok, I’ll be the first to ask. At the risk of being called stupid. WTF is a Tardigrade?


8 posted on 08/31/2021 8:55:43 AM PDT by Clarancebeaks
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To: Clarancebeaks

A very small tough critter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade


9 posted on 08/31/2021 8:57:33 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: A Formerly Proud Canadian

I don’t know who should be more embarrassed: Us or the canadians..................


10 posted on 08/31/2021 8:58:42 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Clarancebeaks

A nearly indestructible microscopic creature. It is also called a Water Bear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade


11 posted on 08/31/2021 8:59:19 AM PDT by Little Ray (Civilization runs on a narrow margin. What sustains it is not magic, but hard work. )
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To: Red Badger

similar to the slime molds, these creatures are
smarter than Xiden and Harris. perhaps ...


12 posted on 08/31/2021 9:09:11 AM PDT by Diogenesis (Tuitio Fidei et Obsequium Pauperum)
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To: Red Badger

That is the rare Twerking Tardigrade.


13 posted on 08/31/2021 9:21:16 AM PDT by PistolPaknMama
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To: Red Badger

There MAY BE light at the end of the tunnel, up here in occupied Alberta (occupied by the Laurentianist of Kanadahar). The CONservatives are leading slightly in the polls in all of Kanadhar (Canada), something VERY unexpected. True-dope called the election for no justifiable reason, because the polls suggested that he would get a majority. As it is, he is probably going to get a smaller minority than he has now, and may well lose the election!

There have been protests most places that True-dope campaigns at, INCLUDING large cities like Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, HOTBEDS of leftist-think in Kanadahar. These protests are, by and large, LOCAL people who are angry at what he has done.

Though not much good, Erin O’Toole, the (not very) CONservative leader, is SO MUCH better than True-dope. Of course, a dead horse would be better than Rocky Waterhole’s (probable) spawn.


14 posted on 08/31/2021 9:21:16 AM PDT by A Formerly Proud Canadian (Ceterum autem censeo Justinius True-dope-us esse delendam)
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To: Red Badger

Tardigrades? Thought this was a Biden thread. I see his portrait here.


15 posted on 08/31/2021 9:23:15 AM PDT by StAntKnee (Add your own danged sarc tag)
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To: Red Badger

More like smartigrades if you ask me...


16 posted on 08/31/2021 9:23:55 AM PDT by Yardstick
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To: Red Badger

Yes


17 posted on 08/31/2021 9:24:29 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: A Formerly Proud Canadian

...’Tards walking...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LOL


18 posted on 08/31/2021 9:24:52 AM PDT by Yardstick
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To: Red Badger

A tardigrade is that F you get for always coming to class late.


19 posted on 08/31/2021 9:29:14 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Red Badger

When you look at the amount of precision engineering that went into JUST that one creature you come to realize just how empty the theory of evolution really is.


20 posted on 08/31/2021 9:33:22 AM PDT by DouglasKC
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