The Benshi

This is an awesome little video about an awesome little creature. Tardigrades have always been my second favorite invertebrate (beaten only by octopus). If you’ve got a brown thumb when it comes to taking care of nature, this is your creature. They are a prime example of both cryobiosis and cryptobiosis. You can bake ’em, freeze ’em, dry ’em out, and send ’em into space — they won’t bat a water bear eyelash. Tardigrades are perhaps the most mind-bending organism on the planet, and the tardigrade lover in this video is the perfect match for them.

QUIRKY IS AS QUIRKY DOES. It’s Friday. Do something to alter your consciousness, then watch this wonderful 8 minute video that has perfect casting, matching a guy who clearly thinks and acts just like a Tardigrade.

yikes

WATER BEAR LOVERS UNITE!

Wow. If you were born when I first got to know water bears, you’d be 36 years old. Of all the creatures we met in the incredible year-long invertebrate biology course I had the privilege of taking at the University of Washington (ZOOLOGY 433/434 taught by the great Alan Kohn and the late Paul Illg— I still have my notebooks from the course!), Tardigrades (or water bears) were truly the most mind expanding. As the humble tardigrade lover in this video explains, they may or may not have originated here on planet Earth. Who knows. They can withstand 300 degrees Fahrenheit. You can dry them out, put them in a dish on a shelf, come back a decade later, hit them with water, and presto, back to life. Tougher than the hardiest house plant.

But even better is this video. Perfect casting, perfect editing, perfect music scoring, a tour de force of humbleness. Talk about trust and likeability — I totally trust this guy to tell me the truth about tardigrades, and I like that he doesn’t play to the camera as if he’s hoping to get his own show on Discovery. In fact, this is the very sort of guy who ought to have his own show. He’s awesome.