[HN Gopher] Scientists have found a way to 'tattoo' tardigrades
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Scientists have found a way to 'tattoo' tardigrades
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 52 points
Date : 2025-05-06 01:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| seeknotfind wrote:
| > this technique could be suitable for printing micro-electronics
| or sensors onto living tissue.
|
| I was thinking we could use tattoos to identify tardigrades, like
| how they tag animals for research purposes, but this is next
| level.
| kaonwarb wrote:
| Impressive... and more research needed:
|
| > About 40% of the tardigrades survived the procedure
|
| Still impressive!
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| It's a bit less impressive considering they are tardigrades and
| can survive almost anything.
|
| Though I guess tattooing a hardy animal is more difficult.
| mrbungie wrote:
| It's a bit more impressive when you consider the size of
| these buddies.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| That's what made it impressive in the first plane.
| protocolture wrote:
| "New Laser kills 60% of Tardigrades" wasn't as snappy for the
| paper headline.
| snvzz wrote:
| Tardigrades are quite durable otherwise.
| dekhn wrote:
| only in their dried-out state. Under regular conditions,
| they are easily squished.
| stavros wrote:
| OK, how? All the photos I've seen of them are taken with
| SEMs, implying that you can't squish them any more than
| you can squish an amoeba.
| dekhn wrote:
| I work with live tardigrades under a microscope and you
| could easily squish them with a little metal pick, or by
| pressing on the glass coverslip.
|
| 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.
| stavros wrote:
| Ahh, I thought you meant with your fingers or something,
| that makes sense.
| dekhn wrote:
| I suspect if you really tried to deposit a pile of
| tardigrades on your finger and squeezed really tight you
| could probably damage them with the ridges of your
| fingerprints. I don't know enough about the biophysics of
| finger pressure and how the surfaces interact, and I
| wouldn't really want to do this (feels cruel, even if
| they have very limited nervous systems).
| musicale wrote:
| Great, in a few years those tardigrades will be asking the same
| scientists about laser removal.
| microtherion wrote:
| Luckily for them, this is a Chinese research team. An US based
| team doing this would get the tardigrades deported because the
| tattoo allegedly said "MS-13".
| Y_Y wrote:
| This is a funny joke, but I wish there was a rule about
| introducing the theme of contemporary US politics/culture
| wars in threads where they are not already present. It seems
| to serve as high-vcass flamebait.
|
| (I know there is already a rule about metaposting to complain
| about rules, please consider this well-intentioned civil
| disobedience.)
| maxbond wrote:
| > I wish there was a rule about introducing the theme of
| contemporary US politics/culture wars in threads where they
| are not already present.
|
| This falls under "eschew flamebait" and "avoid generic
| tangents," no? (I also chuckled for whatever it's worth.)
| SpaceL10n wrote:
| It certainly doesn't add anything of substance to content
| in the article.
| MisterTea wrote:
| I find humor to be a welcome breath of fresh air in a
| room full of stale hot air. I reject the view that this
| forum has to be a dry meeting of the minds.
| canadiantim wrote:
| Tardigrades have always been punk
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| Finally.
| Sirikon wrote:
| Trump has found a way to accuse tardigrades of being gang members
| cloudking wrote:
| How does one come up with such an idea in the first place?
| Y_Y wrote:
| It's an obvious progression from burning ants woth a magnifying
| glass
| Ekaros wrote:
| Identifying tardigrades seems like obvious problem for this
| solution. You are doing experiments and want to track
| individuals overtime I don't think there is that many
| identifying features in them. So you need something.
| mhb wrote:
| 1. "We need some funding"
|
| 2. "Hey, I got an idea!"
| neilv wrote:
| With all the recent existential threats to humankind, tardigrades
| have become an emerging market for fashionable luxury goods and
| services
| zombot wrote:
| How long until companies pay to have their logos painted on
| tardigrades' backs?
| b3lvedere wrote:
| "After this first step, Zhao and Qiu hope that this work could
| enable advancements such as microbial cyborgs and other
| biomedical applications in the future."
|
| I'm not sure if i shoud be happy microbial cyborgs exist.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| You can stick something onto a human cell to reprogram its
| behavior
|
| 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.
| butlike wrote:
| Just wait until the microbial cyborg hackers: "This body has
| been pwned by Micro squad"
| alach11 wrote:
| I'm trying to think of practical use cases for this. Is
| surveillance one of them? Could you drop a bunch of these marked
| tardigrades on an object or on money and later identify it?
|
| 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.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Now we can finally prove we're not just seeing the same
| tardigrade everywhere! lol
| davidw wrote:
| I want a Far Side cartoon depicting this.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| ... I think there will be a lot of competition for the Ig
| Nobels this year.
| jancsika wrote:
| Here's a fun thought-experiment: imagine that NASA began with the
| truism that tardigrades are the best fit candidates for
| astronauts[1]. They put all their effort and money into robotics
| and tech to support little tardigrade colonies on The Moon and
| Mars.
|
| 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.
| staplers wrote:
| by the time we have the tech to figure out how to terraform
| Mars
|
| A billion year oxidization event that forms an atmosphere,
| creates water from nothing, and ignites the core of the planet
| triggering tectonic activity?
|
| The myth of humans "terraforming Mars" is so far from reality
| it makes me question the aptitude of anyone suggesting it.
| betterThanTexas wrote:
| Presumably it's at least worth considering if such a
| pessimistic attitude is warranted. Such a slow oxidation rate
| is certainly not warranted on a chemical process level. The
| trick is performing this chemical process 1.5 AU away.
| staplers wrote:
| Absolutely, don't mistake my cynicism for defeatism. I want
| it as badly as anyone else, but the chemical and
| thermodynamic makeup of Mars does not warrant optimism
| (given present knowledge).
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Bezos's vision is better than Musk's. This plan to
| gravitationally disrupt Ceres and turn 100% of it into
| habitat strictly dominates all other space colonization
| ideas in our solar system not least that it can provide
| more square feet of habitat than Earth does but probably
| not the 0.2 km^3 of ocean per person or the 0.7 million
| tons of atmosphere per person that we have, areas where
| Biosphere 2 fell tragically short. [1]
|
| 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
| butlike wrote:
| > 40% survived the procedure.
|
| And it's a long way from 'survived' to 'prospered'. Are we sure
| this is the most humane thing to do?
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| I don't think society is at a place where asking whether
| something is the most humane towards tardigrades makes sense to
| most people.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Yeah, but somehow blasting tardigrades with an electron beam
| to write on them feels a little cruel to me.
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