The Tardigrades save the Earth!

Tardigrades or Water bears are one of the toughest organisms created by nature. These water-dwellers have a barrel shaped body, eight legs and are 0.1 -1.5 mm in length. Though they are usually found on lichens and mosses, they are found in a variety of places including the ocean, mountain tops, rainforests, and the poles.

Tardigrades can survive extreme conditions which are otherwise lethal to all other life forms. They can withstand temperatures as high as 150 o C and as low as -272 o C. Pressures upto six times greater than that found in the deepest of ocean trenches can be withstood by them.

They can survive Ionizing radiation of upto 570,000 rads, while a mere 500 would be enough to kill a human. Though these organisms need water to flourish, they can go without food or water for upto 30 years, and rehydrate themselves when conditions are favourable.

What’s more, these creatures can even survive in vacuum, in outer space, as proved by Swedish researcher Ingemar Johnson, who launched them into space on the FOTON-M3 spacecraft in 2007! 1/6th of their DNA comes from foreign organisms, and they can survive the effect of toxic chemicals as well.

However, these creatures are not made to live in extreme conditions, but can only survive unfavourable conditions. Thus, their chances of survival decrease with increasing time of exposure to extreme temperatures/pressures, etc. Tardigrades survive by a phenomenon called “cryptobiosis” – where they freeze or dry out completely to achieve a state like being dead- where they don’t move, eat or breathe- a reversible state of suspended metabolism.

When they dry out, they replace almost all the water in their bodies by a sugar called “trehalose” which protects their
membranes and tissues.

It was a dark night, with no moon. A strange conical object that was as pitch black as the night, was hovering over a huge mountain situated somewhere in the Himalayas. The object was not very large; it was just the size of a helicopter. It made no sound at all. It stood in the air silently, without support, without movement, as if waiting for something. A lone, sleepless mountain goat, sensed the eerie presence in the dead of the night. The object, was in fact, a spacecraft from outer space. Humans would call it a UFO— an unidentified flying object. But of course, the goat didn’t know that! It kept staring at the spaceship, and bleated. “Mehhh!!”

A little while later, a bright red laser beam shone into the sky from behind the rocks on the mountain. The beam flickered for a moment, and then landed on the outer body of the flying object, reflecting a dull metallic gleam. As the mountain goat looked on in amazement, the spaceship moved in the direction of the rocks, and a small door slid open at the bottom of the metallic cone.

A vertical rod emerged, descended downwards, and latched on to something. It then drew back rapidly, and the door shut. The craft started rotating. The slow spin suddenly whirred into breakneck speed, and it disappeared! The frightened goat ran away, bleating away in the silent night.

But inside the spacecraft, nothing was still or silent. There was a flurry of activity, and strange, blue skinned creatures wearing lab coats and conical caps, were busily working in laboratories which held several strange instruments, meters and display screens.

The creatures were short, had rough scaly skin, flat identical faces with three eyes bulging out, and claw-like hands and legs. One of them, the one who had just entered, rushed towards an inner cabin, holding something in his hand. He burst open into a room, speaking in a strange language of grunts and whistles, but this was what he said:

“Master! Master! I’ve got a sample”, he panted.
Another of their kind, who was sitting on a pedestal made of some shiny material, slowly looked up.
“ZK-23, what took you so long? You know we don’t have enough time!” said the “Master”.
“I am sorry, Master”, mumbled ZK-23, bowing awkwardly.
“Time is of essence here… if we Zoinks have to survive, we need to find another planet that we can make our home soon”, sighed the Master. “How much fuel do we have left in our spacecraft?”
“We have enough left to travel another 50 million light years, Master”, said ZK-23.
“Well, that should last us till we find another planet … just in case Earth doesn’t work out for
us. But it should— I’ve heard that, unlike our Mother planet that hosts only us Zoinks, Earth
supports a huge variety of life forms. But still, it is dominated by the human species, which is
as foolish as it is intelligent. It shouldn’t be difficult for highly advanced species like us to
completely exterminate them!”
“Are we going to kill all the humans Master? That’s a huge task! The entire planet is
populated with these Homo sapiens!”
“Not just the humans, but every form of life on Earth; we Zoinks are used to having an entire
planet to ourselves, and it will be too much to have to adjust with any other creature, however
small or insignificant. Anyway, we should be thankful that there is enough Nitrogen here in
the earth’s atmosphere for us to breathe!”
“Oh yes, Master, 78% of it is Nitrogen!” said ZK-23 gleefully.
“Now, hurry and analyze the sample. See what living forms you get, and try out those tests on
them to see how they can be destroyed!” ordered the Master, while ZK-23 hurried to the
laboratory.
The aliens in the lab worked busily for half an hour, while the Master waited restlessly.
Finally, ZK-23 walked in, breathless as usual.
“Master, we have found a small… small.. organism”, he said, nervous with excitement and
apprehension. “We want you to see it!”
“What is it?” the Master rushed into the laboratory, and looked at the huge display screen,
that showed what was placed under the microscope. On the screen, they could see an eightlegged,
segmented organism swimming around slowly. It looked like a bear, only several
times smaller.
“This is not a human!” exclaimed the Master.
“No, it is not, Master”, said ZK-23, “But I hacked into one of the human data systems to find
out its name. They call it a ‘Tardigrade’.”
“Well”, said the Master impatiently. “What about it?”
“We don’t know yet”, said ZK-23, hesitating. “The human electronic systems are not as weak
as we thought. They could detect our presence, and I was worried we would be found out. So
I had to stop immediately.”
“Ah, never mind”, said the Master. “Conduct our tests on it. Meanwhile, collect some more
samples from the other points. If everything is clear, in the next 12 hours, we shall attack
Earth.”
“Yes, Master”, said ZK-23. In the next five minutes, the spacecraft stopped at the Amazon
rainforest, Antarctica and the Pacific Ocean and collected samples.
ZK-23 hurried to the lab, where the other aliens were wearing a worried expression. They reported the results of the first test to him. He listened, nodded, and handed over the fresh samples to them, ordering them to carry on with the experiments. He waited for a while, and the other Zoinks came back to him, looking even more worried than before. After a short discussion, ZK-23 went to meet the Master.
“There is some bad news, Master”, said ZK-23. “Those… those Tardigrades that we found… in the mountain ice sample… they are present even in the other samples I took from various other places on Earth.”
“That’s okay, as long as we can get rid of them… what do the test results show?” asked the Master.

“I’m sorry Master, but the Tardigrades… they have been able to withstand temperatures upto 150 o C, and -272 o C”, said ZK-23.

“What? Impossible! Even we can’t stand such high temperatures!” said the Master, shocked. “But never mind, try ionizing radiation! Now!”

A little later, ZK-23 returned. “They are able to survive even after exposure to 5,70,000 rad units of radiation… X-rays, UV rays, Cosmic rays… nothing seems to work!” he said.

“Try huge amounts of pressure! Extreme pressure!” shouted the Master. He was panicking now. ZK-23 came back, shaking his head in despair. “We put them in vacuum”, he gulped. “And took them out— and they’re still alive after that.”

Another Zoink joined the meeting. “And a sixth of its DNA is foreign DNA”, he said, “which means it is highly adaptable.” “In short”, said ZK-23, “It is impossible to kill.”

The Master looked pensive. “But we need Earth at any cost! And we can’t share our new planet with anyone!” he groaned.
“If I may suggest something Master”, said ZK-23 timidly. “I would say… let’s leave Earth alone. I don’t think we will be able to destroy all the life on this planet. We might end up bringing forth our own doom.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the Master in surprise. “Well, Master, these organisms are so tough that none of our trials have been able to kill them. If such tiny organisms are so strong, and can survive the most extreme of conditions, just imagine how much stronger the larger creatures must be? Needless to say, even the humans must be much smarter than we’ve heard!”

The Master thought for a while. “You’re right, ZK-23”, said the Master finally. “Let’s not take a risk. There are so very few of us left anyway. Let’s try to find another suitable planet soon.”

The black, conical spacecraft did not stay on the Earth for a moment longer. It sped into space at the speed of light. So, quite obviously, when the mountain goat tried telling his friends the next day about the dangerous alien object that he had seen in the sky the previous night, they all laughed at him.

“Dreaming as usual”, sniggered one.
“He loves telling tales”, laughed another. “But we are not going to believe them!”
The poor mountain goat didn’t know how to convince his friends. The Tardigrades, living in the snowy soils, smiled to themselves as they heard the c