Tardigrades or "Water Bears" are the only creatures known to man that can survive the extreme conditions in the vacuum of outer space.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W194GQ6fHI

With regards to existence and the universe, what is one inclined to hypothesise from this?

(February 22, 2013 at 7:55 pm)naimless Wrote: With regards to existence and the universe, what is one inclined to hypothesise from this?

They're rather hardy motherfuckers?

Ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Tardigrade astronauts. Remind me to get excited when tardigrades take along humans for near Earth experiments.

Hmm... I was insinuating perhaps these can provide clues for how some of life got to earth from space. Perhaps there were tardigrades on Mars, or Venus, or Pluto, or Kepler-37b, or inside the latest moon rocks, or meteorite.

Targigrades are not the only creatures that can survive direct exposure to outer space. Many bacterial life have been shown to survive and remain reproductively viable much longer, years in cases, of direct exposure to space on unsanitized space craft components. Laboratory experiments also show many bacterial life can tolerate far more extreme conditions then even targigrades.

As for targigrades on other planets, 1. Even targigrades have not been shown to be come clise to bring hardy enough to survive thousands of years in outer space required for panspermia.
2. Targigrades are multicellular organism made up of complex eucaryotic cells. As such they are high up on the ladder of earthly cellular evolution. They are nowhere close to the base or irigin of tree of life, such that it might be plausible that similar creatures to targigrades might be found elsewhere under the panspermia hypothesis.

" at the speed of light, it would take hundreds or thousands of years to go from one galaxy or planet to the other"
Planet hopping and galaxy hopping are somethings that can stand on very different distance scales.
There are planets a few light years away.... galaxies... hmmm the nearest is 2.5 million light-years away.... -.-'

(February 23, 2013 at 12:30 pm)Chuck Wrote: Targigrades are not the only creatures that can survive direct exposure to outer space. Many bacterial life have been shown to survive and remain reproductively viable much longer, years in cases, of direct exposure to space on unsanitized space craft components. Laboratory experiments also show many bacterial life can tolerate far more extreme conditions then even targigrades.

As for targigrades on other planets, 1. Even targigrades have not been shown to be come clise to bring hardy enough to survive thousands of years in outer space required for panspermia.
2. Targigrades are multicellular organism made up of complex eucaryotic cells. As such they are high up on the ladder of earthly cellular evolution. They are nowhere close to the base or irigin of tree of life, such that it might be plausible that similar creatures to targigrades might be found elsewhere under the panspermia hypothesis.

........... I envy christians all they have to say is "adam & eve" and go on about their day

(February 23, 2013 at 8:19 pm)pocaracas Wrote: galaxies... hmmm the nearest is 2.5 million light-years away.... -.-'

Point of clarification: Granted M31 is the closest spiral galaxy, but the nearest galaxy to ours is the Sagittarius Dwarf, about 70,000 ly away, though a possible closer candidate would be the Canis Major Dwarf (25,000 ly) if it even exists. Next comes the Large Magellanic Cloud at around 150,000 ly, followed by the Boötes Dwarf at 197,000 ly and the Small Magellanic Cloud at 200,000 ly - all satellites of our own Galaxy. It's still a hell of a walk, whichever way you slice it.

This person doesn't appear to be very knowledgeable about the animals he is studying......

Look at :this:

Evolutionary history, relationships to other species, all sorts of info.

And yet he claims we know little about them.