
Tardigrade protein helps human DNA withstand radiation - based2
http://www.nature.com/news/tardigrade-protein-helps-human-dna-withstand-radiation-1.20648
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jacquesm
Curious about the timeline regarding application of this knowledge and
techniques with respect to longer space travel (Mars trips?)?

With what I know any application of this would be a long long time into the
future, but maybe that's incorrect and there are short-cuts available.

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partycoder
I wonder if this interesting property reduces their mutation rate (and
therefore slows their evolution).

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M_Grey
To be fair, what do they need to evolve for at this point? It's hard to
imagine an extinction event, short of the sterilization of the planet or the
end of Solar activity, for them.

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partycoder
I would say their ability to resist extreme conditions might not be the same
as resisting change in general. e.g: absence of food. Tardigrades are known to
eat each other and in the absence of food they would probably resort to
cannibalism.

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marcosdumay
They eat bacteria. The one thing that one can count on outsurviving
tardigrades is bacteria.

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randomdrake
The actual paper itself is available in full online and released under
Creative Commons. We should do our best to promote research like this instead
of linking to blogospam that is advertising articles like "Trumps IQ Will
Shock You" or "Eat This Junk Food To 'Reverse' Dementia."

[http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12808](http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12808)

"Extremotolerant tardigrade genome and improved radiotolerance of human
cultured cells by tardigrade-unique protein."

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okket
The article in Nature is much more readable IMHO:

[http://www.nature.com/news/tardigrade-protein-helps-human-
dn...](http://www.nature.com/news/tardigrade-protein-helps-human-dna-
withstand-radiation-1.20648)

~~~
dboreham
The comments on that article are particularly interesting.

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PudgePacket
Why is nearly every word in the title capitalised?

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delinka
See 'Title case' at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Case_styles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Case_styles)

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witty_username
But it's weird with a long compound sentence.

