Scientists May Have Solved the Secret of the Water Bear

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[Narrator] The water bear is legendary for two things,

its incredible toughness

and for looking like a cannon wearing wrinkled khakis.

These tiny animals, also known as tardigrades,

can survive pretty much everything,

short of throwing them in fire.

They survive some of the coldest

temperatures in the universe.

Doses of radiation that would kill a human

do nothing to them.

Boiling them doesn't work either.

And they can survive drying out for at least 30 years,

and reanimate just fine.

How water bears do it has long been a mystery to scientists,

until now.

Researchers say they found a special protein

that the water bears use

to essentially turn themselves into glass statues, like so.

More technically, they're called

tardigrade specific intrinsically disordered proteins.

They're disordered because, unlike most other proteins,

they don't maintain a 3D structure.

How exactly they're working to protect the water bear though

is still a mystery.

What is clear is that this could have

big implications for humans.

Vaccines require refrigeration, or they'll perish.

If scientists can use the water bears trick

to dry out and reanimate the medicine as needed,

it'll keep the vaccines from spoiling

and save a lot of money on shipping.

So thanks a lot water bear,

and stay tough.

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