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"New Laser kills 60% of Tardigrades" wasn't as snappy for the paper headline.
by protocolture 2y ago
"New Laser kills 60% of Tardigrades" wasn't as snappy for the paper headline.
- snvzz 2y agoTardigrades are quite durable otherwise.
- dekhn 2y agoonly in their dried-out state. Under regular conditions, they are easily squished.
- stavros 2y agoOK, how? All the photos I've seen of them are taken with SEMs, implying that you can't squish them any more than you can squish an amoeba.
- dekhn 2y agoI work with live tardigrades under a microscope and you could easily squish them with a little metal pick, or by pressing on the glass coverslip. Tardigrades are very different from amoeba. They have a well-defined cuticle exoskeleton surrounding a liquid space, about 1000 cells, while an amoeba is single cell and highly deformable.
- stavros 2y agoAhh, I thought you meant with your fingers or something, that makes sense.
- dekhn 2y agoI suspect if you really tried to deposit a pile of tardigrades on your finger and squeezed really tight you could probably damage them with the ridges of your fingerprints. I don't know enough about the biophysics of finger pressure and how the surfaces interact, and I wouldn't really want to do this (feels cruel, even if they have very limited nervous systems).
- SoleilAbsolu 2y agoYes, durable enough to power FTL starships in the future!