The Transmogrified Tardigrade

Into Space: the Final Frontier

Tardigrade: Wired / Free to use and share / Bing Images

You might have seen the recent news that the Chinese military has successfully extracted the bit of tardigrade DNA that gives these odd creatures the ability to withstand high levels of radiation. Researchers have successfully incorporated those tardigrade genes for radiation tolerance into human embryonic stem cells. I'm not making this up.

Scientists Put Tardigrade DNA Into Human Stem Cells. They May Create Super Soldiers.

The hope is to build better soldiers for the coming nuclear madness we all fear and hope never happens before mankind takes the opportunity to smother civilization with a pillow. Yet it pays to be prepared, if humanity is to live on and eventually populate the galaxies. In our dreams.

Meanwhile, the TransHumanists--aided by increasingly sophisticated tools and backed by the funding of billionaires betting on eternal bliss and bionic brains--support an all-out "moon shot" effort to build better humans--in their lifetime. Good luck with that.

Alas, it seems increasingly likely that our species will succumb to the too-wet too-dry too-hot too-cold of the not-so-distant future Earth when we are overcome by events, and do a Wile E. Coyote, futilely thrashing in mid air. But that tale, for another time.

So just briefly, an explanation, in the unlikely event that you have never actually met a tardigrade (through a microscope or in your dreams). They are also known as "moss piglets" since the name describes both where you can collect them, and also their plump pig-like appearance. They move about sluggishly, on clawed appendages--8 of them. Tardigrade actually means "slow walker" and they really are—exciting to find but boring to watch.

They are often found ponderously plodding through the film of water on mosses, lichens, bark and other surfaces on every continent (but only one planet we know of.) But if things get too extreme, this remote relative of the insects can shed all of its internal water and persist as a cryptobiotic, dehydrated mote of piglet for a very, very long time.

10 Astounding Facts About Tardigrades

Too dry, too cold? Not for these survivors. And as mentioned, their genes may make humans into bio-tools for future wars. They even have amazing survivability, exposed to the vacuum of space. Top that!

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But wait: Stop the presses! Wrap your head around this epic idea that can change the future course of life in the cosmos. But we must act quickly!

BUILDING BETTER WATER BEARS

Instead of using tardigrade genes to build better humans, why not add the desirable cellular genius of sponges, of mushrooms and cockroaches and viruses--whatever--to the DNA of our friend, the water bear. The possibilities are endless. Think about it. We should be all in on this--while there's time--to outfit these pudgy organic bits with as much diversity in their genes, organelles and behavior as possible. Then, we seed the galaxies. Right?

The Secret is Out: Scientists Figured Out How Tardigrades Became Immune to Radiation

I mean--let's get real about interstellar human travel.

You and I are squishy and frail, with a ridiculously-short shelf life. We sink in water, shrivel in drought, fry in the sun and whine when it goes below 72 degrees or we can't reach the remote. We fall apart against ionizing radiation and are afraid of the dark.

Better we should stay on Earth and binge-watch Cheers.

The future is not TransHumanism but the Transmogrified Tardigrade. The T-grade it will be called; and it will be built to serve. It will be built to boldly go...

WATER BEARS IN SPACE

So over parsecs of empty space and through centuries of Earth-time, the Enhanced Tardigrade Travelers (ET-T) who have slipped the surly bonds of Earth will not require food or water for the trip.

They will not grow bored or depressed; will not insist on Sirius or Netflix; and will not get old and crabby, wrinkled or forgetful. (Even so, at the end of the journey, they will still look like cartoon characters turned into overstuffed pillows. With claws.) But the point is that T-grades will arrive ALIVE on a habitable planet.

Tardigrades / Water Bears Anatomy BING IMAGES

There is so much more you should know, but here's the heart of it: While most of the target planets will have atmospheres and surfaces too extreme even for the T-grades, some alien worlds will offer what minimal needs our unweary travelers require. They will survive, but not only survive.

Imagine their family tree in 3 billion years.

They will reproduce, generation after generation, mutating over eons and epochs into a dozen phyla (like our mammals, reptiles, arthropods, bacteria)--each showing specialization of one or a many of the Earth-engineered traits from their long long-ago terrestrial life. Some may actually come to resemble their ancestral genetic Earth-parents, a million times removed.

If the primordial ooze can do it, well T-grades got a leg up on that slime!

AND IN THE END

And ultimately on that far-away colonized world, through serendipity and by desperate design, a science and a wizardry will come about to give the final T-grade-derived civilization immense power over their fates. And yet, they will blow it.

Even with their magnificent minds and marvelous bio-crafting and terraforming chops, the hippo-sized distant relatives of the T-grades will over-populate and poison what once was their cosmic home.

Yet in the end--just before the end, actually--their scientists will gather those very genes that were added to tardigrades from the Prime Directive of the 2030s, as human civilization launched its final starship and ended with a whimper. That ancient DNA will be implanted into a tiny almost-invisible moss-piglet-like micro-life of their world.

And they will boldly go...

Bing Images / Free to share and use. This is not an overstuffed pillow

NOTE: My wife insists that if I post this, it will be taken as a serious proposal and I will be thought to be deranged. But I will not post a disclaimer, since that ship has already sailed. @ff