They're gonna be the last ones standing

If you had to guess one thing that could outlive any other being in pretty much any environmental condition ever, what would you say?

Not cockroaches. Not those cool, super poisonous cone snails, either. Not humans, certaintly.

Then what? Well, I'm glad you asked. If you didn't ask, I'm very sorry, but I quite frankly couldn't care less. Sorry.

The answer to your question, whether you asked it or not, is a tardigrade! You know, large blue box, bigger-on-the-inside, can travel through all of time and space....

I'm just kidding, of course. A tardigrade is actually a very, very small water animal, only 1.5 millimeters long at the most, that has eight legs, a plump, segmented body, and tiny little claw-type things. They're more amoebic than actually animal-like because they're so small and misshappen. They look like this:

 

They have a very slow, lumbering walk, like a polar bear, which is why they're sometimes called water bears. They eat plant and animal material. They're found throughout the world, mostly in moist places, and were first discovered in 1773. But the thing that makes them the most absolutely fantastic is that they can survive in all sorts of extremely treacherous conditions. 

Tardigrades are able to survive temperatures of around 300 degrees Fahrenheit to about one degree above absolute zero. They can live in very, very low pressure, like in a vaccum, or in very, very high pressures, 1200 times the atmospheric pressure. They can live for up to ten years, usually, in dry moss without water. Tardigrades can also withstand huge amounts of radiation that would be fatal to humans. 

They do this by going into a sort of hibernating state in which they slow and almost stop their metabolism and appear almost dead--sort of like when Juliet takes that sleeping draught in Romeo and Juliet. When they're in this state, they can survive almost anything. 

As you can probably imagine, scientists are fascinated by tardigrades. If they can survive end-of-the-world catastrophic conditions, then perhaps we can figure out a away to adapt their power into something we can use. 

For this reason, scientists launched some tardigrades into space in what is called the TARDIS, or TARDigrades In Space project. If the tardigrades can survive in space, that could tell scientists so much about survival and DNA and reproduction and cool science stuff. It's so exciting! Are you excited? I'm excited! 

Tardigrades are one of those little, awesome things about the world that sort of makes you want to know more about it. I mean, if virtually indestructible, teeny tiny little things can exist here, on Earth, in the world where we are every single day, what totally awesome cool things exist in other places, on other planets, even? It gives one furiously to think, does it not?

If you want to learn more about tardigrades, you can look at this video, which says some of the things I just said, but also some more things. I hope you're as interested in these little things as I am.