Daniel and Jorge Explain the UniverseHow did tardigrades end up on the moon? Today we're joined by special guest Prof. Brian Keating
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Hey or hey, how long do you think life on Earth will last?
You mean human life or just life in general under Earth?
Oh, let's assume the humanity somehow manages to off itself. What do you think is going to survive.
I'm not sure we can as we have to assume that it's looking pretty probable these days. Probably some of the stuff in the back of my fridge that looks pretty pretty hardy.
It's been there for thousands and millions of years. Well, my wife would like that answer, since she's a microbiologist. They are a tough bunch microbes. But let's think bigger. What about multicellular life. You think anything like that could survive?
Hmmm, like an actual like animal organism. Yeah, don't They say cockroaches can survive in nuclear explosion, But I'm not sure that's true.
I'm not sure that's true either. I think it's just good pr by the cockroach lobby. But there is something on the Earth that is even tougher than the cockroach.
I hear it's cuter too.
That's not a very high barre to pass.
I am Orge, I'm a cartoonism the creator of PhD Comics.
Hi, I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist.
And welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio.
In which we go all around the universe and find interesting, weird, crazy, little creepy crawley stuff to talk to you about and explain it to you in a way that hopefully you find entertaining.
Cute little creatures and also horrifyingly scary looking sometimes they're even the same organism.
That's true. You know, there are lots of things which look scary when they're big, and then are just cute and cuddly when they're small. Like if you walk next to a mountain lion, you'd be freaked out, But everybody's housecat is basically a miniaturized mountain lion.
It's all about the scale.
It's all about the scale. The opposite is true. Also, take anything you find cute a dragonfly and make it the size of a school bus, and all of a sudden it's terrifying.
It's terrifying.
Yeah, so some things are cute when they're tiny and terrifying when they're huge.
And one kind of like children too, you grew up into teenagers, terrifying, cute as a toddler's terrifying as teens.
Exactly, and especially terrifying if your toddler grows up to be the size of a school bus.
So do you ever going to talk about something that's been on the news lately? Right, Daniel, it's been apparently it's now been a colonizing the moon lately.
That's right. This is a fascinating little creature. It's a bit of a departure for us because it's not quite physics, but it appeared in the news recently. And also we had a listener write in and say this is her favorite thing in the whole world and could we please talk about it on the podcast?
Her favorite thing in the world. Is this creature that we're going to talk about?
Yes, exactly, is this time little fature that.
It may now be colonizing the moon?
Exactly?
So today on the program we'll be talking about Tardi grades. What is the Tarti grade and why are they so interesting? And how did they end up on the moon. That's the question we'll be talking about today.
Yeah, it turns out they're a crazy little creature that can do things no other creature we know of can do. So it's quite amazing.
Yeah, and it's also a little bit cute slash terrifying at the same time. So if you are not driving right now and have a moment, yeah, you're welcome to post our podcast right now and just go on the internet and search for images of Tarti grades and what you will find will both make you go awe and oh.
If you imagine one the size of a school bus.
So yeah, Tarta grades are these creatures and they look wild, right like if you could look at a picture of them, they look like monsters from a science fiction movie.
They do look like crazy little creatures. And you know, usually at this point in the podcast, we go out and we ask people on the street what they know about the subject. But today we're doing something a little bit different.
Today instead of starting with asking people on the street what they think at Tartar Grade is, we're going to try a news segment today called Ask the Wrong Expert, in which we bring somebody on is a world class expert on one topic and ask them about something completely different.
That's right, And I feel like this is only fair since I'm always springing questions on random people that you see Irvine. They're not experts and what I'm asking them about and we hear them speculate and sometimes struggle and guess. So I thought it might be fun to also hear what happens when you ask an expert, a scientist about something they don't know anything of.
And so to the end the program, we have our good friend Brian Keating. Welcome Brian, Hi.
Guys, great to be with you again virtually through the ether.
All right. So, Brian is a professor of astrophysics at UC San Diego's Department of Physics. He has over one hundred scientific publication and holds two US patents. Tell it, Brian, what do you what kind of a What are you an expert in?
My specialty is experimental cosmology, So I build new universes, and no, I don't do that. I build telescopes that can see invisible radiation known as the cosmic microwave background radiation. And my number one project now is going to be one of the world's highest altitude observatories on Earth. Called the Simon's Observatory. I'm the director of it, and it's a collaboration of about two hundred and sixty scientists on all seven continents on planet Earth.
Wow. Brian, you're also the author of a book called Losing the Noble Prize.
That book was published in twenty eighteen, and the pipe paperback edition, the new and improved paperback edition, is about to come out any day now.
It's a really fun book for those of you who haven't checked it out. It chronicles Brian's adventures and misadventures in physics, which I think is really fascinating. I think it's really brave of you to talk all about how your experiment thought they saw something and then turns out they didn't.
This is two part memoir, really well, part of it's a story about what it's like to actually do experimental science. You know, a lot of our colleagues, you know, Daniel youwit excluded, but a lot of our colleagues brainiac scientists as they are, are theoreticians, which means that they deal with the esoterica between their ears and perhaps to be discovered centuries long after they're gone. And these include you know, wonderful writers Stephen Hawking, Brian Green, Lisa Randall, et cetera, et cetera. And they're wonderful, as I say, and they inspire us. But an experimentalist in some sense has a unique vantage point on the process of how science is done. So I want to chronicle what it's like to do experimental science at the world's extremes and what it's and how it took me from a small telescope as a twelve year old kid all the way to the bottom of the Earth at the South Pole, Antarctica, where I've been several times and done research along with the team that thought we had glimpsed the afterglow of what's called inflation. I know you guys have done some podcast episodes on that. I won't get into too much detail, but suffice it to say, inflation is the epoch theorized by theorists, our friends Alan Gooth and others to have produced the bang in the Big Bang, what caused the expansion of the universe to accelerate incredibly rapidly at extremely early times. And when we made this announcement on Saint Patrick's Day, the world was really in awe that we had discovered as they say, the aftershocks of the Big Bang itself, so to speak, This set the world's attention and media on fire, with millions and millions of people around the world excited about these discoveries, and as every account in the book, the extraordinary experience that it was like to be once be the leader of this team and then go to being kind of on the outstae of it, just as we were being positioned to potentially be the recipients of the Nobel Prize for the magnitude of this discovery. So it's a memoir of that process. And then along the way, immediately after the denu month, as they say, of that episode, I was asked by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences to nominate the winners of the Nobel Prize that I potentially could have been eligible for. So it'd be kind of like, you know, somebody coming up to you and saying, you know, guys, you guys have a great podcast, but can you introduce me to Neil de grasse Tyson because I'd really rather be on that show. So it's kind of humiliating in a sense, and because I had aspired to win a Nobel Prize, for a long time, and it really impelled me to look at the Nobel Prize and what it did to me personally and perhaps other scientists around the world too. So it was sort of cathartic in a way. And many scientists have written to say that they agree with the kind of conjectures and proposals that I put forth to reform what's arguably not just science's highest honor, but humanity's highest honor. There's really, you know, nowhere to go from there but down in terms of accolades that a human being can receive. So it's a it's a memoir coupled with a little polemic dash side order of polemicism on the side.
And have you received any feedback from the Nobel Prize committee themselves that they opened to reform proposals?
Oh? Yes, they embrace it wildly. They want to adopt them completely, change it to the Keating Prize.
Do you want to give them a Nobel Prize in Literature just for the book.
Prizes?
So, being Hausenfelder, I guess you go. I'm sure you guys know. She she wrote it kind of a critical review of my book, but in the end, she said, the writing is so good. You know, maybe he'll win. He'll lose the Nobel Prize in Literature next, but no.
They losing another losing a second Nobel prize exactly, all right, Brian, So you are an expert in astrophysics and the Big Bang and cosmology and experimental physics. But today we are going to be asking you about today's topic, which is about party grades. Have you suard of tarty grades before?
Yes? I used to receive a lot of negative ones in school for being late. Get it, get it, that's quite good. Yes, I know about tartar grades. I don't call them tarte grades. They call them water bears, all right, and I understand there's not only plenty of them on Earth, but there's also a few in the heavens.
That's right, they have established it.
Maybe you are an expert in tartar grades, then.
Well let's find out. The point of this game ask the wrong expert is to see how scientists think when we take them out of their you know, the little niche that they've developed expertise in and asked them to think carefully about something else. And so that's why, Brian, we wanted to ask you questions about something that wasn't your field, so feel free to answer wildly and share your thoughts.
Good, and you haven't had time to look this up in Google or anything right right now.
I promise I'm not.
I'm not looking on what the right now, I promise you.
First question is true or false? Tartar grades are sometimes called moss piglets.
Moss piglets, I'll say, true.
All right? True or false? The name tartar grade means slow moving.
That sounds about right.
True, all right? True or false? Daniel named one of his children after tartar grades.
No, but I know that you have some rats in the house, so maybe you named a rat after.
A tartar grade.
You have water bears in your house, has water rats, and I'm.
Sure actually everybody does have water bears in their house.
True?
Yeah, all right, Well you are three for three on that one, Brian. I'm very impressed.
Wow, thank you.
I'd like to thank the Academy, the Nobel Academy.
Oh you're not done yet. We got more.
There is a Nobel Prize for podcast guessing.
Podcast guessing.
All right. Second question, Brian, is which involves first tartar grades or dinosaurs.
Oh, that's a good one. You mean which is old or not coming there presumably co evolved at.
Some point, the war or the dinosaur.
I'm going to say some form of dinosaur, some form of creature would have free dated them.
Maybe, So you're going with dinosaurs, I'll go with some.
Form of Well, actually, you're making any condgehogging. I'm also pigleting.
Well. I appreciate your change direction there. You were correct in your final answer. They're not your preliminary one. Tartar grade do outdate the dinosaurs?
Wow, they don't look a day over sixty eight Maine means all right.
Next question, Tartar grades can live almost anywhere, But where do they like to live? A volcanoes, b under vending machines, c A two bedroom condo in Hollywood, or d any place damp.
I'm going to go with the last one.
Date.
I think lots of two bedroom condos in Hollywood are probably pretty damp.
Also, that's true too, Yeah, maybe, yeah, that's true. They can live wherever they want. Probably they can live in space. They don't need water. So I'm gonna gonna revise my answer. Let's see them.
No, your first answer is right, it's a damn place all right right.
Next question is what's the highest temperature a Tardi grade can tolerate? Is it A one hundred degrees fahrenheit, B three hundred degrees fahrenheit, see one million degrees fahrenheit or D They have hun survived LHC collisions at five point five million degrees.
I'm gonna go with B.
You are a good guesser, Brian. That way, you have a very very deep knowledge.
Our fast internet connection. Just kidding, I don't.
Are you feeding all these questions into Siri? Is she listening in and packing answers? All right? Last question, which of the two scenarios is more likely in your opinion? A A robot revolution in which we all become slaves to artificial intelligence or B Tartar grades building a civilization on the moon and becoming our lunar overlord.
Well, we know that they're living there now. They got their courtesy of an Israeli spacecraft. I'll say A. This more likely because these little Tartar grades are you know we're gonna keep them at bay on the moon.
All right, Well, it's good to know that you worry more about AI revolution than the coming of our lunar apocalypse.
I want to see that movie where we become slaves to the artificial intelligence robots, but then the Tarti grades come down from the moon to save us. Ah. Just this great giant battle between water bears and robots, maybe even some dinosaurs you get thrown in.
This is giving me an idea for a new book, the Tartar Grade Hypothesis.
That's a ligature Nobel prize right there.
That's right, yea team up with Michael Bay. I'm sure that'll be a big hit.
That's right. I'll share you share the opening credits with.
You, guys. All right, thank you very much for playing our silly game and doing so well. We need to come up with some sort of prize. How about ten Tartet grades.
Are you going to record his answering machine, Daniel or maybe?
All right, well, thanks very much for being guest on the podcast. And folks, check out Brian's book tell us again, Brian what it's called.
It's called Losing the Nobel Prize and it is available in paperback as we speak.
Hopefully, all right, So check that out and you can lose your own Nobel prize. All right, So Brian did pretty well on our quiz I was impressed with how well he was able to answer questions about something he does not have a PhD in.
And so we'll get into what a TRD grade is, where can it survive, and where can you find them? But first let's take a quick break.
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All right, we're talking about Tarti grades. What are they? Why are they so funny looking? Why are they so cute and scary at the same time?
They are crazy little creatures. And so for those of you who don't have a Google image in front of you, let's try to sketch it out for you in your mind.
Oh man, let's tread to paint the nightmare.
Yeah, exactly, And remember they're tiny all right. So first of all, these things are tiny. They range from point three to one point two millimeters, so they're absolutely microscopic. But they do look a little bit like bears, I mean, except that they have eight eggs.
Yeah. I think if anyone's not not seen in these before, I would describe them as like little plush teddy bear animals with like giant claws and horrifying mouths with teeth. That's kind of.
Yes, it's the face. The face is horrifying, right. You got the legs, so there's got eight legs, four on each side, with little claws in them, and they're sort of poofy like a pillow, you say. But the mouth, the face, that's the part that's terrifying because there's no discernible eyes. It's just like this sucking thing in the.
Front, relying with teeth all around.
Right.
Yeah.
Have you are you a watcher of Stranger Things?
I am? Yeah, I'm a huge fan.
Yeah. I think that these things might have been the inspiration for the demagorg or whatever that thing is that comes out of the upside down, because it also has this eyeless face that's featuring just a big mouth.
Yeah, line with a bunch of teeth.
Yeah, exactly. So, I think this thing would be really terrifying. If it was the size of a school bus or you know, even like a red wagon, it would be pretty scary. But the fact that this microscopic means that you know, it can't really do you any harm.
But still it's pretty scary. And even though I know that they're only like a millimeter or less than a millimeter in length, it's scary. Do you think that those things are out there? It could be on me, inside of me. Maybe, I don't know.
Can you tell me there are almost certainly some on you. I mean, these things are found everywhere. There are in sand dunes, they're in soil, they're in leaf litter, they're in water, especially like any sort of damp place at all, you'll find them. And if you scoop up, like you know, a leader of sort of gunky water near the edge of a pond, you probably get about twenty five thousand of them in a leader.
Like any old pond.
All over the world, from the tops of mountains to you know, wet goofy places to basically everywhere, these things have adapted to live in almost every environment on Earth.
And just to be clear, are they insects? Are they bugs? Are they like bacteria? Are what do they officially classify under?
Well, they are not bacteria, right, they're multicellular. Theyre actually are an animal. They're officially categorized as an micro animal. But they're in the Kingdom animalia. They're not an insect, they're not bacteria, they're not a microbe. But they are just a tiny, tiny, tiny little animal. And genetically people think that they have evolved to be tiny from something larger.
Oh no, kidding, they started out bigger. Yeah, that's not scary at all exactly. It's an example of miniaturization. And you know, I love when this thing, when this happens in evolution, when things like change dramatically in scale, you know, like horses used to be much smaller and whales evolved from something much smaller, and these tartar grades are all from something larger. Like we don't know exactly how much larger that there are some fossilized versions, but it's a bit of speculation. But imagine, like, you know, there could have been like a time when there were big tartar grades roaming the earth. Yeah, like a hand sized tartar grade or maybe even bigger.
But yeah, these are one of the tiniest little animals on Earth.
And they've been on the news lately because apparently they've made it all the way to the Moon. Somehow. There is now life on the Moon.
There is now life on the moon. Yes, this Israeli lander they sent up to the Moon had this project on it to sort of record human and Earth DNA, and they said, you know, if something goes wrong on their Earth, it might be good to have sort of like a backup copy of people and all sorts of other stuff somewhere else that's protected. So they were flying to the Moon and they thought, oh, let's put some human DNA to bring up the Moon, and while we're at it, we'll bring some tartar grades.
What could go wrong?
You go wrong?
And then of course it crash landed right, and a lot of it was vaporized, and people think that nothing survived except maybe the tartar grades, because they are really tough little critters. They are really really hard to kill.
Yeah, so that's kind of what they're known for, right, is their heartiness and their ability to survive even the craziest of environments.
Yeah, they are really hard to kill, and people have found them in all sorts of places on Earth, Like they've found them in hot springs, they find them in the Himalayas, they found them on the bottom of the ocean, they find them in layers of solid ice, and they've done all sorts of crazy experiments on them just to sort of test how far they can push the survival of a tartar grade.
Wow. So what are some of the most extreme conditions that we know that they can survive.
Well, one thing they've done is just like dose them with radiation, because you know, radiation is one thing that kills people, and it kills people when you're an outer space or when you're on the surface of the Earth. And so what they've done is.
Just like stick them in the microwave. See what happens with some grapes, which is more exciting.
Yeah, exactly. Know, they just like blasted them with gamma rays, you know. And it turns out that tartar grades can survive radiation doses that would kill humans, and even more like, they can survive radiation doses that are hundreds of times the radiation dose that would be deadly to a human being.
Wow. But my question is how can they do that? How can they survive all of that radiation?
Is it?
Are they just made out of like tougher materials or the DNA is just more I don't know, more like redundant or what's what's your secret?
There are some organisms that are called extremophiles that are adapted to live in crazy environments like high radiation, et cetera. And some of those bacteria, for example, they have extra copies of their DNA and just in case one of them gets blasted, they can recopy them, right, And so that's adapting for living in those environments. Tartar grades aren't like that. They're not adapted to live in these environments. They just sort of can survive because they're extra tough. And and the way they do is they have this special protein inside their body that protects them. And these proteins can turn into glass and help them survive when it gets really really dry, or when there's a lot of radiation, or basically when anything happens. They have armor, yeah, exactly, but it's armor inside. It's not like a shell. It's something inside the body. Because the thing that happens when you get hit by radiation is that the stuff inside your body gets torn apart. Right, it's the same problem that when you freeze, for example, why can you not freeze the human being and then thaw them out. The reason is that when water freezes, it gets bigger, right, Ice is bigger than liquid water. And so each of your cells, for example, is a little bag of water, and when it freezes, it turns into ice, which is bigger than the cell membraneasically bursts the cell.
And so wait, wait, wait, wait you mean Captain America could not have survived being frozen in the art.
The Marble Cinematic Universe, not a documentary. Sorry to break to you, that's right.
But somehow these little animals they can survive being frozen, and they can survive super high temperatures and pressures and radiation. And you're saying it's all because they something in like the liquid of their cells or something surrounding their cells kind of gives them that protection.
Yeah, it's like the liquid that's inside their cells is different from the liquid that's inside our cells, and it's hardier. And that's not hardier like you make a better soup, though maybe it would. I don't know what tartar grade soup tastes like but it's hardier, Like it's more robust.
What chances are you are probably eating a couple of tartar grapes when you drink your soup, right, I mean every soup is sing every soup ever.
Yeah, but it's the soup of the inside their cells that's more robust. So, for example, when they freeze, these proteins inside their cells turn into a kind of glass that protects the cell right from the.
Inside, Like like it crystallizes into something unbreakable.
Yeah, it's described as turning into glass. And I know the glass is not a crystal, so I'm not sure if crystallizing is exactly correct, but essentially, yeah, it's instead of turning into an ice cube, which is bigger than the drop of water it originated from, it turns into this little bit of glass. And they call this it has this awesome name. They call it cryptobiosis, right, ah man. And so to survive these environments, the tartar grades, you know, these proteins turn into glass, and then they can do crazy stuff, like they can survive outer space. You can just like throw tarta grades into space, collect them again and add water and they wake up.
Put them in the microwave.
What we haven't done is put them in the LHC. That was a funny suggestion, but it's not something I'm aware that we've actually done.
Is like, well, put it in the next proposal, Daniel, you could, you could make a cryptobiotic breakthrough.
I'm gonna build a tartar grade collider. I want to see what happens when you accelerate tartar grades to the speed of light and collide them against each other.
So it's kind of almost the opposite when they freeze. Instead of forming crystals that might break the cells, you're saying that it has some sort of something in there in the inside of their bodies that somehow hold it together, so that you maybe don't get those crystals.
That's right, You don't get sort of ice crystals exactly. You get this other stuff which doesn't expand because remember ice is sort of special, right. Ice is one of the few things that when you freeze it, it gets bigger. It's a special property of water. Most things in the universe when you freeze and they get smaller. And so this has some other stuff inside it cell. So when it freezes, it doesn't get bigger and sot of avoids popping even though we are mostly water.
And then how do they survive the high temperatures? Then? Is it just like a thick skin or like a like everything's just held together better or what.
They're just held together better? And so they can survive these high temperatures, they can survive these super low temper They can even be dried out and you can you can suck all the water out of these tartar grades, and it doesn't again, it doesn't like rearrange what's inside them in a way that breaks them. It like naturally zips it up. And so they've seen these tartar grades. They can get down to like one percent of the normal moisture they have. You know, it's like beef jerk. It's like tartar grade jerky. And then you add water back and it just like flips up and goes about his business happily jumping away.
Do you think it remember, like, do you think it's still thinking when it's dehydrated.
I think we need to have one on the podcast so we can ask it these kind of questions. Yeah, what is it like to be It's.
Way for them to evolve in the moon and then we'll ask him a question. So they can survive, and you're saying volcanoes even like hot springs kind of up in the mountains, Yeah, the bottom of the sea.
Yeah, they can survive outer space. Four hundred and twenty degrees kelvin. What, Yeah, it's pretty crazy, down to one degree kelvin all the way up to four hundred and twenty degrees calvin. It's really hard to get these things.
What is four hundred and twenty degrees kelling relatives little to like water boiling or a fire.
Four hundred and twenty degrees kelvin is about one hundred and fifty degrees celsius, which is higher than the boiling point of water. So you can make tartar grade soup and the tartar grades will still be happily swimming around inside.
Swimming around drinking. You're drinking it with their horrifying mouth.
Well, that's right. So when you eat tartar grade soup, are you eating the tartar grades or are they eating you?
All right, And so they somehow ended up in space because the Israelis put them there as an experiment to see if they would survive. The moon trip or or in the moon. Is that kind of so they were kind of thinking about landing these things on the moon or not.
They intended to land these things on the moon, that was the idea, right, But they had them sort of contained in a special little device, and they were of course in their cryptobiotic state. But when it crash landed, you know, all that whole thing got ruptured and they got you know, tossed out and they're tumbling along on the surface of the Moon now, and so you know, if the right drop of water hits them, then they could wake up. And you might think, well, there's no chance you're gonna get water on the Moon, right, But that's not that unlikely because the surface of the Moon is pelted constantly by a rubble from outer space, and some of that is ice, right, A huge bracket of the stuff that's out there, and the Solar system is ice. So you have this momentary impact of basically high speed ice on the surface of the Moon. If it just happens to hit a tartar grade, it could melt turn into water. Wake up that tartar grade. Hello, you're on the moon.
What what's going on? Where am I? What I'm on the moon. Last thing I knew I was in Israel.
Yeah, because when they go into this cryptobiotic state, they're not dead right there, and they're not totally paused. Their metabolism is actually still going, but it goes down to point oh one percent of its normal metabolism, so it's like one in a thousand. So it's like your body is running at one to one thousands of its normal speed.
Whoa's amazing.
I don't know what that's like, though, but I'd love to know.
All right, let's get into what it means to have tardigrades in the moon. But first, let's take a quick break.
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All right, we're talking about Tarti grades on the moon, and so there are now Tarti grades on the moon, kind of on purpose, but kind of by accident. Also, right, I mean you meant to send them to the moon, but they got out. That's right, Like in a bad science fiction movie.
Nobody can imagine this stuff, and if they did, nobody would believe it. Right, But it is our life, this is our universe. There are Tartar grades on the moon. We don't know if they're walking around, we don't know if they're munching on stuff, but they are there.
And can they survive? Is there stuff for them to eat? What did Tarti grades eat?
Yeah, that's a great question. A Tartar grade they eat plants, and they eat little bacteria because remember they're super tiny and sometimes they also eat tartar grades.
So maybe there's only one tartar grade on the Moon right now.
It's one big tartar grade now, and it's hungry.
It hit all the other ones.
It's a grumpy tartar grade and it's looking to come back to Earth for lunch.
All right, Well, good job humans, you've now colonized the Moon.
That's right, or our little allies, hopefully, our friendly little allies have colonized the Moon. And you know, it's funny to joke about like tartar grades on the Moon surviving of some sort of global apocalypse or catastrophe the humans bring on. But you know, tartar grades have already survived a lot of global catastrophes.
Yeah, that's try. They've been around. I mean, we've said it before. They've been around longer than the dinosaurs, which means they've seen it all. They've seen it all. They've seen everything that all come and go.
They're bored, right, They're not interested in climate change and nuclear apocalypse. To them, that's no big deal. They've seen crazier stuff. You know, in the history of our planet, we've had five of these things we call mass extinctions where something happens that changes the climate or the environment, and a lot of species die. And we've had five of those so far, and tartar grades pre date even the first one. They evolved before the first mass extinction, and they're still here, which means they've survived all five of them.
Right, they's a lit us suspicious if you ask me, if you think about it, isn't it.
That makes them suspect number one?
I mean, there isn't any other suspect.
I think it's pretty awesome. I'm amazed. I love these little creatures. I mean, I don't want to see one the size of a school bus walking into my backyard. And they are a little creepy, but they're also sort of awesome. Like what evolutionary path led to them? Could we survive this way? Like could we copy this technology somehow to become more radioactive, more protective from radiation. It just it seems so awesome when evolution finds a little niche to reveal secrets to you.
And it's amazing to think about what we must look like to them, you know, imagine being such a hearty being and seeing all these other animals around you that are really if you think about it Compared to them, we're super fragile and really vulnerable.
That's right. We're these huge squishy meatbags. Right. All you have to do is poke us and boom it's over.
Yeah, just a little poke.
These are crazy little creatures. There's also a lot of really other fun little facts you can learn about them, Like they actually molt like snakes. Do you know they shed their skin?
What?
Yeah, they really are tiny little creatures. I mean, they're the size of microbes, but they really are animals. It's sort of like ant Man, you know, like actually getting shrunk down to the microscopic world and living among these creatures.
Like they have organs inside and everything.
Oh yeah, no, they poop and everything, Like they eat, they poop. They they are little creatures.
Yeah, absolutely, there's tardy poop.
They might be target podcasts for all we know.
So they molt like snakes.
Yeah, they molt like snakes. And there's lots of little versions of them. There's one that I find particularly hilarious that doesn't poop except when it molts. It's like it holds it in for months and then it gets rid of its skin and just leaves it all behind. So I'm not sure we really want to adopt, like all of the culture of these tartar grads. You know, there's some things we just want to pick and choose. It's like a buffet.
Well, I don't know. You know, if you only have to go to the bathroom once every couple of months, that would save you a lot of time and conserve water which might be in low supply in the future.
Yeah, that's true. If you're holding that all in, you might also want to leave that skin behind because it seems kind of soiled.
All right. So those are tartar grades, little tiny actual animals, not insects, not bugs, not bacteria, but actual little animals that will probably outlive all of.
Us, almost certainly outlive all of us. And you know, each individual tartar grade doesn't actually live that long. They only live for like three months, maybe up to two years, but it really of course, yeah, they reproduce.
I mean, unless they get frozen in space or something.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, then they can live longer, but sort of like a live time, unfrozen time is not that long. So it's not like there are like thousand year old tartar grades combing the earth, you know, with ancient wisdom in them or anything.
Oh man, they're busy. They're busy, getting busy.
They are. Their male tartar grades, their female tartar grades is a whole society. You know. They probably have dating apps. They've been around a lot longer than us, so they've got this thing.
For gore on. Oh wow. Yeah. To survive at that scale and that, they must be pretty busy and reproducing.
Right, they're definitely more. Tartar grades are unearth than people.
All right, I'm just gonna go have some nightmares right now. And well, thank you, Daniel.
Just like your housecat would be terrifying if it was larger, these things are tiny and though you don't have to worry about that. Well, thanks to Jazl for writing in and asking us to talk about tartar grades. They're a really fun subject. I hope you enjoyed it.
And when next time you look up at the moon, you can know that we have some neighbors out there.
And wave to the moon and be friendly because we don't know what their intentions are.
You hope you enjoyed that. See you next time.
If you still have a question after listening to all these explanations, please drop us a line we'd love to hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter, and ins at Daniel and Jorge That's one Word, or email us at Feedback at Danielandhorge dot com. Thanks for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth, you're probably not thinking about the environmental impact. But the people in the dairy industry are. That's why they're working hard every day to find new ways to reduce waste, conserve natural resources, and drive down greenhouse gas emissions. House US dairy tackling greenhouse gases. Many farms use anaerobic digestors to turn the methane from manure into renewable energy that can power farms, towns, and electric cars. Visit you as dairy dot COM's Last Sustainability to learn more.
There are children, friends, and families walking riding on paths and roads every day. Remember they're real people with loved ones who need them to get home safely. Protect our cyclists and pedestrians because they're people too. Go Safely, California from the California Office of Traffic Safety and Caltrans.
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