{"id":5466,"date":"2017-03-28T15:50:43","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T19:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=5466"},"modified":"2017-03-28T15:50:43","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T19:50:43","slug":"moss-piglets-secret-survival-weapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/moss-piglets-secret-survival-weapon\/","title":{"rendered":"Moss piglets&#8217; secret survival weapon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5467\" style=\"width: 730px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5467\" class=\"wp-image-5467 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/moss-piglets.jpg\" alt=\"A scanning electron micrograph of 6 tardigrades in their tun state. When tardigrades dry out, they retract their legs and heads within their cuticle, forming a ball-like 'tun.' (Image by T.C. Boothby)\" width=\"720\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/moss-piglets.jpg 720w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/moss-piglets-300x213.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-5467\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A scanning electron micrograph of 6 tardigrades in their tun state. When tardigrades dry out, they retract their legs and heads within their cuticle, forming a ball-like &#8216;tun.&#8217; <em>(Image by T.C. Boothby)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Tardigrades are among the most resilient species on the planet: they can survive in the deep sea, in nearly-absolute zero temperatures, and even in space. Also known as water bears or moss piglets, their survival in the most extreme of conditions has been mind-boggling for generations of scientists. Now, researchers believed they have solved a piece of that puzzle by discovering a mechanism that keeps tardigrades from drying out: a unique set of proteins called tardigrade-specific intrinsically disordered proteins (TDPs). These proteins seem to &#8220;turn on&#8221; whenever a tardigrade begins to dry out. This helps the animals form glass-like protective solids instead of crystallizing, which would lead to desiccation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Authors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thomas C. Boothby, Hugo Tapia, Alexandra H. Brozena, Samantha Piszkiewicz, Austin E. Smith, Ilaria Giovannini, Lorena Rebecchi, Gary J. Pielak, Doug Koshland, Bob Goldstein<\/p>\n<p><strong>Corresponding author:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thomas C. Boothby, Life Sciences Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Email: tboothby@gmail.com<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cell.com\/molecular-cell\/fulltext\/S1097-2765(17)30133-8\" target=\"_blank\">Original paper<\/a> published in <em>Molecular Cell<\/em> on March 16, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tardigrades are among the most resilient species on the planet: they can survive in the deep sea, in nearly-absolute zero temperatures, and even in space. Also known as water bears or moss piglets, their survival in the most extreme of conditions has been mind-boggling for generations of scientists. Now, researchers believed they have solved a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5467,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[2688,2927,2926],"class_list":["post-5466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-cell-biology","tag-moss-piglets","tag-tardigrades"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/moss-piglets.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-1qa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5468,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5466\/revisions\/5468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}