#microscopiclife — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #microscopiclife, aggregated by home.social.
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🧬 Microscopic animals that haven't needed a male in 25 million years -- and just got revived after 24,000 years frozen solid.
Bdelloid rotifers are tiny freshwater creatures (smaller than a grain of sand) that have reproduced exclusively through parthenogenesis -- cloning themselves without males -- for over 25 million years. Fossil evidence confirms they've been asexual this entire time.
When their habitat dries up, they enter a state called anhydrobiosis: their bodies completely desiccate into a dormant speck. They can stay that way for decades -- or, as scientists discovered in 2021, for 24,000 years locked in Siberian permafrost. When thawed, they resumed swimming and eating as if nothing happened.
The same DNA-repair machinery that lets them survive complete desiccation also makes them extraordinarily resistant to ionizing radiation. They can stitch back broken DNA strands with remarkable efficiency.
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If you like photographs of teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, wittle-wee-things like me then this is likely up your alley.
#macro #micro #microscope #MicroscopicLife #PhotoMicrography
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Camera trap for microscopic aquatic life. Is it possible? How?
#microscopy #micrography #pondlife #aquaticlife #microscopicorganisms #microscopiclife #wildlife #wildlifephotography #photography #cameratraps #wildlifetraps #diatoms #ciliates #amoebas #algae