Link, Researchers' blog. Image: courtesy Willow Gabriel and Bob
Goldstein. The world's toughest animal (see Boing Boing post
from last year) has been sent into space. Tardigrades (aka Water
Bears) can survive incredibly harsh conditions, including
freezing to near absolute zero, extreme vacuum and radiation.
Exposed to open space on the Russian FOTON M3 satellite,
tardigrades are the first animals tested and perhaps the best
candidate on earth for surviving space travel. Boing Boing
editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and
produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America
airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast
cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email:
firstname.lastname@example.org.