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Scientific American 60 Second Science. I'm Suzanne Bard. Tartagrades are some of nature's toughest animals.

Also known as water bears, the tiny creatures can withstand extreme conditions,

like boiling hot temperatures, long periods of dehydration, and even oxygen deprivation.

One of the really cool things about tardigrades is that you can shoot them in out of space and they can survive the vacuum and radiation of low-Earth orbit.

University of California San Diego biochemist Jim Cardonaga.

Of course, he says tardigrades didn't evolve to endure the perils of space travel.

Many tardigrades live in environments that are both wet and dry, like moss.

And when it's wet, they're active, and when it's dry, they can go into a desiccated state.

That's something like a state of

suspended animation. Normally dehydration would make tardigrade DNA

susceptible to damage from chemicals

which form when water molecules split.

They also form when DNA is exposed to radiation.

But Kato Naga suspected that a protein found only in Tardigrades, called D-Sep, might protect their DNA under both conditions.

D-Sepstans for damage suppressor protein.

And the remarkable thing about this D-Sup protein is that when you put it into human cells in the laboratory,

it makes those cells more resistant to x-ray radiation.

Kato Naga's team, led by then undergraduate student, Carolina Chavez,

studied how D-Cep protects DNA and cells.

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