Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

bigthink.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 99 posts

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#51

Post by amelius »

noduerme wrote: post #10
aetherspawn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean all we need now is to find out how to make a prion that forms TDPs so we can glue it to the outside of COVID-19 in some twisted gain of function research.

This is such a sad exemplar of where we've gone as a technological society. Thirty years ago, you could have suggested releasing a virus that destroyed cancer, and people would have cheered.

There is even a worse example: imagine a protein that locks onto pieces of DNA that are only present in people of a certain race, etc.

The worst part is, we can stop building the foundations of this type of technology, but our geopolitical opponents will not.

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#52

Post by etiam »

j16sdiz wrote: post #26

Great! Looking forward for hand-sanitizer-proof virus in the next GoF research.

Wouldn't be much point. Most viruses who don't envelop themselves in cell membrane taken from the host are already pretty much impervious to it already.

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#53

Post by Kaijo »

GuB-42 wrote: post #44
wcrossbow wrote: post #36

Intersting, however, there is something about this format of headline that always makes me twitch a bit inside. There should be a law of scientific headlines, something along the lines: Whenever a reporter writes, "Scientists finally discover why...." you can be sure to interpret as "Scientists have even more questions about why...". The phrasing confuses the understanding of the general public about how sciences and…

One analogy I like is to imagine our scientific knowledge as on a land map. We have a large sheet of all there is to know. There is a small area in the middle that is mapped, that's what we know, it is surrounded by blank space, that's what we don't know. As we explore further, the small area expands, but by doing so, its border also expands, meaning that the more we know, the more unknown we are exposed to. We expan…

"Knowledge is like a sphere, the greater its volume, the larger its contact with the unknown." – Blaise Pascal

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#54

Post by jacquesm »

amelius wrote: post #51
noduerme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a sad exemplar of where we've gone as a technological society. Thirty years ago, you could have suggested releasing a virus that destroyed cancer, and people would have cheered.

There is even a worse example: imagine a protein that locks onto pieces of DNA that are only present in people of a certain race, etc. The worst part is, we can stop building the foundations of this type of technology, but our geopolitical opponents will not.

> our geopolitical opponents

Who are they?

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#55

Post by etiam »

INTPenis wrote: post #48
euroderf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Too many steps, just release it in nature and it'll end up in a wet market.

Or just run the thing in a place where lab staff are considered expendable, skimp on safety and have the staff eat out regularly at a nearby wet market. Practically effortless.

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#56

Post by etiam »

Klaster_1 wrote: post #8

Can this be used to store larger organisms for prolonged duration? Maybe instead of cryochambers the future space travelers will use drychambers.

That's an excellent observation, but I suspect it will get much more difficult as the ratio between volume and surface gets dominated by volume.

Not that cryonics are necessarily in a better position about that, so I guess for comparison between those methods the point stands regardless.

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#58

Post by TechBro8615 »

jacquesm wrote: post #54
amelius wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is even a worse example: imagine a protein that locks onto pieces of DNA that are only present in people of a certain race, etc. The worst part is, we can stop building the foundations of this type of technology, but our geopolitical opponents will not.

> our geopolitical opponents Who are they?

Pretty sure OP is referring to the Chinese.

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#59

Post by barrysteve »

noduerme wrote: post #10
aetherspawn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean all we need now is to find out how to make a prion that forms TDPs so we can glue it to the outside of COVID-19 in some twisted gain of function research.

This is such a sad exemplar of where we've gone as a technological society. Thirty years ago, you could have suggested releasing a virus that destroyed cancer, and people would have cheered.

We did globally coordinate and deploy a vaccine campaign with little spare time.

Re: Scientists finally figure out why the water bear is nearly indestructible (2017)

#60

Post by hovden »

Headline is misleading. Waterbears are quite fragile, albeit tougher than most. I bought some and found nearly all would die after short exposure to low vacuum. Manuscripts seem to corroborate our findings. It is the exaggerated headlines that lead me to believe they are indestructible.
Post reply on HN