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Study: Water bears can survive in space

KRISTIANSTAD, Sweden (UPI) -- Swedish scientists say water bears -- tardigrades -- have become the first animals to have survived exposure to the vacuum and radiation of space.

Water bears -- multi-cellular, invertebrate animals about 1 millimeter in size -- are unique in that they can survive repeated dehydration and can lose nearly all the water they have in their bodies.

It's been nearly a year since Kristianstad University researcher Ingemar Jonsson sent some 3,000 microscopic water bears on a 12-day space trip. The aim of the project, supported by the European Space Agency, was to determine whether they could survive in space. They could.

"Our principal finding is that the space vacuum, which entails extreme dehydration, and cosmic radiation, (was not) a problem for water bears. On the other hand, the ultraviolet radiation in space is harmful to water bears, although a few individuals can even survive that," said Jonsson.

The next challenge, he said, is to determine the mechanisms behind water bears' exceptional tolerance.

The research by Jonsson and colleagues in Stockholm, Sweden, and Stuttgart and Cologne, Germany, appears in the journal Current Biology.


Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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