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Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)
- folkrav 4y ago> tardigrade-specific intrinsically disordered proteins (TDPs) Going from "Tartigrade-specific intrinsically" to a single T in the acronym is rather interesting...
- leephillips 4y agoWhat acronym?
- folkrav 4y agoThe one in my quote, that's used in multiple places in the very article...?
- leephillips 4y ago[flagged]
- folkrav 4y agoTDP -> tardigrade-specific intrinsically disordered protein Most people would agree that this is an acronym - although some purists may prefer "initialism" as it's not pronounced as a word. At least, Merriam Webster seems to agree, and Oxford's lists that purist definition second to the way I used it.
- akvadrako 4y agoI would say it's only an acronym if it's pronouncable. Maybe that's what they mean.
- cshimmin 4y agoI think it's a pedantic attempt to bring up the whole "initialism vs acronym" thing. You know, kinda thing that makes you real fun at parties.
- folkrav 4y agoYeah, I kind of figured that out as you responded - see my other comment hehe. For what it's worth, Merriam Webster seems to agree that the distinction is basically arbitrary, and OED has the more general definition first lol
- crazygringo 4y agoOh yikes. I've never even heard of the term "initialism" before. I guess that's because it's barely used: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=acronym%2Cinitialism&year_start=1950&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=acronym%2Cinit... Maybe some people have tried to push it as a new word in common usage but they don't appear to have succeeded.
- jancsika 4y agopronounces the relevant initialism as a series of transients, Czech-style That acronym.
- zwkrt 4y ago> If you take those genes and put them into organisms like bacteria and yeast, which normally do not have these proteins, they actually become much more desiccation-tolerant Well I have a newfound fear of humans creating a bacteria as hard to kill as a tardigrade…
- aetherspawn 4y agoI mean all we need now is to find out how to make a prion that forms TDPs so we can glue it to the outside of COVID-19 in some twisted gain of function research.
- noduerme 4y agoThis is such a sad exemplar of where we've gone as a technological society. Thirty years ago, you could have suggested releasing a virus that destroyed cancer, and people would have cheered.
- Guthur 4y agoAnd after 30 years many of us have seen enough corporate propaganda to weary of any so called technological promises.
- animal531 4y agoI think people have just had to become a bit more realistic after having their eyes opened. Right now my imagination says that this virus might destroy cancer, but who knows what else it's going to do?
- bboygravity 4y agoClinical trials know what else it's going to do. This reasoning is like the fear of a some random TESTED C++ code destroying the internet, because "it might do things that you don't expect in the long run". Well yeah... it might... but...
- amelius 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Klaster_1 4y agoCan this be used to store larger organisms for prolonged duration? Maybe instead of cryochambers the future space travelers will use drychambers.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y agothey hinted at that in the article. said there's a lot of work before that
- justinclift 4y agoThat really brings to mind the various vampire tropes... ;)
- etiam 4y agoThat's an excellent observation, but I suspect it will get much more difficult as the ratio between volume and surface gets dominated by volume. Not that cryonics are necessarily in a better position about that, so I guess for comparison between those methods the point stands regardless.
- likeraindrops 4y ago"This article was originally published in Big Think." In 2017. Word for word copy.
- neilv 4y agoBeing pre-Covid-pandemic casts the casual mention of pathogen gain-of-function research in a different light.
- bboygravity 4y agoNothing changed for everybody who actually understands gain of function research and does work with it though. It's just another tool to understand how virusses work. Always has been.
- fouc 4y ago@dang (2017)
- iaseiadit 4y agohttps://bigthink.com/surprising-science/scientists-finally-figure-out-why-the-water-bear-is-nearly-unstoppable/ https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/scientists-finally-f...
- dang 4y agoOk, we've changed to that from https://www.veterinarydaily.com/2023/03/scientists-finally-figure-out-why-water.html https://www.veterinarydaily.com/2023/03/scientists-finally-f.... Thanks!
- AiaAidan 4y agoThank you for pointing out - added 2017 to the title.
- tb84 4y agoLOL ain't nothing like flipping 6-year-old news articles, right lads?
- j16sdiz 4y agoGreat! Looking forward for hand-sanitizer-proof virus in the next GoF research.
- euroderf 4y ago[flagged]
- INTPenis 4y agoToo many steps, just release it in nature and it'll end up in a wet market.
- etiam 4y agoOr just run the thing in a place where lab staff are considered expendable, skimp on safety and have the staff eat out regularly at a nearby wet market. Practically effortless.
- agravier 4y agoSeems like a dry market would also do in this case.
- etiam 4y agoWouldn't be much point. Most viruses who don't envelop themselves in cell membrane taken from the host are already pretty much impervious to it already.
- Tepix 4y agoDrinking bleach won't help then?
- bitwize 4y ago> ... that looks like something out of a Disney nightmare scene: strange but not particularly threatening. Funny, I always thought the electron microscope images of tardigrades looked like the monsters in HAZMAT suits from Monsters Inc. https://www.intelligentliving.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/tardigrade.jpg https://www.intelligentliving.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/...
- achow 4y agoIt turns itself into glass. When desiccation begins and TDP is activated, it engages a process known as vitrification. Boothby said, “The glass is coating the molecules inside of the tardigrade cells, keeping them intact.”
- thyrsus 4y agoGlass as I encounter it is a form of silicon dioxide, and not particularly soluble. What new meaning of the word "glass" is being used here?
- wcrossbow 4y agoIntersting, however, there is something about this format of headline that always makes me twitch a bit inside. There should be a law of scientific headlines, something along the lines: Whenever a reporter writes, "Scientists finally discover why...." you can be sure to interpret as "Scientists have even more questions about why...". The phrasing confuses the understanding of the general public about how sciences and scientists actually work.
- endymi0n 4y agoInterestingly, that's my main gripe about scientists. Rarely does any of them actually dare to find anything out and settle a case. You can bet your aunt that the conclusion ends with "further research is warranted"... how better to secure your job!
- pvaldes 4y agoThe main problems is that hides the name of companies and laboratories under an anonymous goop. Is not different than saying: "programmers invented a phone called i-phone" or "politicians gave an speech". Is stupid. The second problem is that gives the false feeling that science works like a religion, where everybody has the same ideas and moves in the same direction as in a priesthood following divine rules. Couldn't be more wrong and damaging. Saying "scientists" does not add relevant info. "We finally figured out why..." or using the passive voice would be the same, but less insulting. "A team in the university/company X" would be even better. Is the right way to show a minimum respect by all the hard work of this people. Journalists don't do this by inertia because science was never in their pool of potential customers paying for advertisement, so they traditionally "don't deserve" the right to be treated as individuals. And when they pay, here comes the overcompensation. The equally annoying opposite effect, where entire articles are centered around worshiping the person. Building a polished public image of TV celebrity. All his bullshit about their epic journeys and how they managed to help everybody despite everybody putting obstacles in the path. If you are lucky, you can find a couple of lines about the real discovery, placed between a photo of somebody eating ramen and another doing surf.
- GuB-42 4y agoOne analogy I like is to imagine our scientific knowledge as on a land map. We have a large sheet of all there is to know. There is a small area in the middle that is mapped, that's what we know, it is surrounded by blank space, that's what we don't know. As we explore further, the small area expands, but by doing so, its border also expands, meaning that the more we know, the more unknown we are exposed to. We expanded the area a little on the tardigrade side, so as expected, it revealed more areas to explore than what we discovered. As a general rule, science more often expands our borders than fills up holes, meaning that the more we know, the more we realize the extent of what we don't know.
- LeroyRaz 4y agoA different article from 2022 claims that following work found a different mechanism. """However, last year another team of Japanese scientists called this "vitrification" hypothesis into question, citing experimental data suggesting that the 2017 findings could be attributed to water retention of the proteins. This latest study supports that counter-hypothesis. "Our data suggest a novel desiccation tolerance mechanism based on filament/gel formation," the authors of the new study wrote.""" Article: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/scientists-glean-new-insights-into-how-tardigrades-can-survive-dehydration/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/scientists-glean-new...
- Loquebantur 4y agoIn such situations it is usually a good guess, both mechanisms occur simultaneously.
- kruuuder 4y agoSo that's how the paperclip maximizer nanobots are going to look like.
- hovden 4y agoHeadline is misleading. Waterbears are quite fragile, albeit tougher than most. I bought some and found nearly all would die after short exposure to low vacuum. Manuscripts seem to corroborate our findings. It is the exaggerated headlines that lead me to believe they are indestructible.
- Nifty3929 4y agoYes, the exaggerated headlines ARE indestructible!
- ccn0p 4y agoReminds me of the people who dehydrate to survive the chaotic eras in Three-Body Problem.