True Facts: The Incredible Tardigrade

CREDITS:

This video was made in collaboration with Benedikt Pleyer, who is a gifted microscopist and has a wonderful contagious passion for discovering the incredible worlds that exist all around us. He has introduced me to all sorts of new creatures and I am fortunate to have met him.

Kita Williams reached out to me almost a year ago with her amazing Tardigrade footage, and I am so happy that she did. She has a knack for capturing these animals in way that gives them so much personality!

Bob Goldstein runs a lab at UNC Chapel Hill and has done incredible work on the Tardigrade (and much more.) He was kind enough to review my work to make sure I didn't screw the science up too much! I wish I could have included more of his work on the evolution of Tardigrades - but I hope to do that in a future episode on arthropods.

Thank you to the following for publishing their images
under the CC license, it is a huge contribution to
science communication.

Water bear (tardigrade), Hypsibius dujardini,
scanning electron micrograph by
Bob Goldstein and Vicky Madden.

Scanning electron micrograph of active hydrated
Echiniscoides sigismundi by Thomas L. Sørensen-Hygum,
Robyn M. Stuart, Aslak Jørgensen & Nadja Møbjerg.

New Echiniscidae (Heterotardigrada) from Amber
Mountain (Northern Madagascar) by Gąsiorek P, Vončina K (2019)

Thank you to all of my Patreon patrons for the
patience, support and feedback

MUSIC:
“BackBay Lounge” by
Kevin MacLeod

Additional footage used under
license from:

[AxleTrade]

Jerry deserves a raise for all the effort he put into making those models.

[ChengTeoh]

Poor Jerry, all he's trying to do is expand his artistic repertoire by creating those delightfully weird looking models.

"No we can't sell that as merch Jerry" ... aw darn, I would have happily paid for Jerry's delectable work of art, who else is with me?

[roraimarain]

I'm a biologist and this: "Intrinsically Disordered Proteins don't have a defined shape and are Floppy Floppy like cooked spaghetti. These seem to act almost like Styrofoam packing noodles, holding organelles in place and making sure things don't stick together as the cell shrinks" --what a genius explanation

[thomashygum]

Hello there

I am Sørensen-Hygum, coauthor of one of the papers you cite. I just want to say that I am very happy and impressed with your video. It is a really great feeling to see my research become part of an educational youtube video. I am really proud of that scanning electron micrograph of Echiniscoides sigismundi and seeing it reproduced makes me happy.

[gracieonamountain]

As a design student, putting a scale bar that just says "small" is aspirational. You do you, Jerry. You know how to save time, Jerry.

[lenore_lacquer]

we don’t know when he’ll appear but he never disappoints

[clockwardkailleach]

"Science isn't a style of photography, Jerry."
That's a genuinely fantastic quote. Much like this entire episode.

[jasonwilde]

"Moss Piglet", The cutest and most docile sounding animal name ever.

[dillonbuford]

Can we appreciate that this man started in the early days or YouTube: before ads, professional YouTube's, when YouTube was basically America's funniest home videos, left for years, return in a time when YouTube was basically a television network, did the exact same thing as before, and was successful.

[DemBigOlEyes]

Jerry is getting more creative. We should encourage him, unlike David.

[mdtalhaansari]

"Science isn't a style of photography, Jerry"
Hubble Space Telescope: _stands up and leaves_

[rollerdirvy]

“It looks like a galaxy.”
Wait, , ,
Is our whole universe *a water bear’s poop???*

[flowerheit]

"Science isn't a style of photography Jerry!" -zefrank, 2021

[KrotharSmash]

We need a True Facts: Jerry at this point.

[MattWeber]

When David Attenborough finally retires, ZeFrank1 should be immediately introduced as his replacement for all nature documentaries, except he is allowed to script it as well.. None of the BS he had to deal with while working for Buzzfeed.

[timkinney]

I just watched like 10 of these videos about tardigrades and none of them explained a damn thing about how they do what they do, this video answered every single question I had while also being hilarious. Thank you for this. I'm officially a huge fan. Keep up the good work!

[truthhasteeth]

He even makes his advertisements funny; "Oh, there's David Attenborough; show off."

[nonnnth]

I like how “getting very dead” is a technical term for an animal losing 97% of its water

[Tepid]

"Science isn't a style of photography, Jerry"

Now that's a true fact.

[icemagiciangh]

In middle school, my class went into the mountains for a field trip. We took samples of water from streams to look at the microorganisms there. I was one of two people who actually got to see a Water Bear.
And, yes, I saw it poop as well.
Mine wasn’t as magical of an experience.