"Amazingly, when we introduce these proteins into human cells, they gel and slow down metabolism, just like in tardigrades."
Part of what's made tardigrades so famous is that they can survive both boiling and freezing temperatures, which was whya team of European scientists sent 3,000 of these half-millimeter-long little guys into space, and weren't so shocked when the majority of them survived. "Amazingly, when we introduce these proteins into human cells, they gel and slow down metabolism, just like in tardigrades," Silvia Sanchez-Martinez, a senior research scientist at UW's molecular biology department and the lead author of the study, said in the school's statement.
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