> About 40% of the tardigrades survived the procedure
Still impressive!
Though I guess tattooing a hardy animal is more difficult.
Tardigrades are very different from amoeba. They have a well-defined cuticle exoskeleton surrounding a liquid space, about 1000 cells, while an amoeba is single cell and highly deformable.
(I know there is already a rule about metaposting to complain about rules, please consider this well-intentioned civil disobedience.)
This falls under "eschew flamebait" and "avoid generic tangents," no? (I also chuckled for whatever it's worth.)
2. "Hey, I got an idea!"
I'm not sure if i shoud be happy microbial cyborgs exist.
https://wyss.harvard.edu/news/a-backpack-full-of-multiple-sc...
Radical modifications of cell membranes have been a think for a while
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg#Bacterial_cyborg_cells
and of course there is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cell
and rapid advancement in synthetic biology.
Doesn't seem like a very efficient way to accomplish the goal, but it would make for a great plot line in a spy movie.
Present day, this alternate universe has the same boring space tourism for humans that we have. But they also have a vibrant inter-planetary research program with robot-assisted colonies of tattooed tardigrades, doing all kinds of experiments, most of which are broadcast back home.
And honestly, by the time we get tech to figure out how to terraform Mars, we'd probably also have the tech to make humans more tardigrade-like. So the tardigrade astronaut program (TAP for short) would provide an important body of knowledge for the necessary biological changes.
Just seems like a better use of astronaut dollars all around[2].
1: I mean, they come standard with little space suits! C'mon!
Edit:
2: And think of the savings: I just found the first batch of candidates for the TAP's Mercury project by picking up a wet leaf.
by the time we have the tech to figure out how to terraform Mars
The myth of humans "terraforming Mars" is so far from reality it makes me question the aptitude of anyone suggesting it.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.07487
[1] CO2 levels swung violently from day to night in Biosphere 2 because they didn't have enough atmosphere relative to plants and animals; Biosphere 2 probably shouldn't have tried to simulate oceans at all
And it's a long way from 'survived' to 'prospered'. Are we sure this is the most humane thing to do?
seeknotfind•9mo ago
I was thinking we could use tattoos to identify tardigrades, like how they tag animals for research purposes, but this is next level.