Nature is just amazing!

EMMM lET us lunch a water rocket to the moon and see what happens

#(removed comment) if you do that they'l take some of your DNA and then there will be to manny clever basterds in the world

Lol I've always imagined first alian contact. This would be kinda dissapointing to be the first haha :p

Great they are getting DNA from everything around them. So after earth is wiped of all life, they will kind of restart it when the conditions are right.

Nature is indeed awesome, though I personally think that water is just Tellus' basic life provider. However, in other galaxies they might have other liquids that they're made up of, it doesn't have to be water. Still, very interesting short doc!

very interesting. the tiniest organism on the earth is probably the toughest out there

#8 tks for the tip... you know, just the tip

If I was Rotifer I would prefer beer.
But interesting vid.
Would be a nice topic for SF novel.

is #(removed comment) collecting an achievment as "add the most stupid comments" =

#10 it seems that you are concerned

Life is nature's way of keeping meat fresh!

just great!!!!! science day on snotr
really now...snotr should add a favourite button
i would definitely /fav this one!!!

can they survive my hammer

The really interesting thing about Bdelloid Rotifers is that they are asexual, and have been for millions of years.

Normally, when a species drops sex, it goes extinct after a short while, for a number of reasons centered on a lack of genetic diversity.

It seems the rotifers escape this fate much like bacteria do - taking genes from the environment to try on for size.

I've seen elsewhere, too, that their little drying-up trick helps them combat a particularly pernicious fungus. After a couple weeks without water, the rotifers remain viable, but the fungus dies completely. Without that trick, the fungus is almost 100% fatal.

Wow... but they could never survive against Chuck Norris

http://www.reed-store.com/shop.cfm/Rotifer-Products/Rotifers-Live-and-Concentrate/

Just for you #3 buy some and try it

Wow. And I thought Bear Grylls was tough.

So, let's add water to dinosaur bones!

Ok, now let's go to Egipt and add water to those dried mummies and call the back to live!

At 03:57 I thought it was a coca-cola

Studying the smallest organism is always a great step into understanding and applying science. Some of these specimen have qualities no other creature(including ourselves) have in our dna. Good video

and this is why I study biology

#(removed comment) Really too generalized. Also the theory you mention doesnt really make sense since the eldest organisms are unlikely to even have posessed DNA but only RNA. The permanent version came later. Also, things like DNA splicing werent there at start either.

The human genome relies a lot on splicing to produce the very diverse proteins. A microorgansism has hardly any introns and therefore needs no splicing. Those on off swithces you mention are there, but its really not that simple

this is really cool.

Why is NASA trying so hard to find water on Mars? If they can, why not send a rocket with those ( dead looking ) organisms to Mars? Put them on the Mars surface in an enclosed area, and look for any sings of life. However if I can come up with this, the scientists of NASA probably already outdated this idea.

@Thanny #18

Lack of reproduction would be true for many larger species.
Most species on earth evolved from Asexual RNA strings and thus gained sex rather then losing it.

Let's put those on a rock, and send them to outer space, wait for them to grow into an intellegent life form capable to send messages into space.