Science Fiction #1: Tardigrades

My name is Clara, and I’m the writer for Ridge Report’s new column, Science Fiction. Each article in this column will take a certain idea from a sci-fi story and talk about how it’s related to the technology we already have (but no knowledge of sci-fi is necessary to understand the content). If there’s a certain story you’d like to see, don’t hesitate to tell me about it in the comments!

You may or may not have heard of an animal called the tardigrade.

 

The tardigrade, also know as the water bear or moss 
piglet. I suppose I can see the resemblance.

Perhaps you read about it in scientific news articles a while back. If you’ve been following CBS’s Star Trek Discovery, you’ll know about the giant tardigrade-like creature that the starship Discovery used to navigate their ship for a couple episodes. But if you have no idea what a tardigrade is, or if you’d like to learn more about them, then it’s worth learning exactly what makes these tiny creatures remarkable enough to earn a mention in one of the most renowned sci-fi franchises in the world.

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