Opinion ID: 4556094
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Tardigrades 2

Text: The tardigrade, also known as a water bear or moss piglet, is a microscopic eight- legged animal less than one millimeter in length. App'x at 149. As reported in Smithsonian See App'x at 157 (photo of a tardigrade published on BBC Nature Features on May 17, 2011). Magazine, most tardigrades are found on moss or the bottom of lakes feeding on bacteria or plant life. Some have been found, however, surviving in boiling hot springs and buried under layers of ice on Himalayan mountaintops. App'x at 149. 3 Further, experiments have shown that tardigrades are able to survive being frozen and heated to 2 The district court properly took judicial notice of the publications discussed herein, describing the tardigrade's known ability to survive in extreme environments and space, not necessarily for the truth of the matter asserted, but for the publication of such information and relevant discussion in the scientific community. See Staehr v. Hartford Fin. Servs. Grp., Inc., 547 F.3d 406, 425 (2d Cir. 2008) ([I]t is proper to take judicial notice of the fact that press coverage, prior lawsuits, or regulatory filings contained certain information, without regard to the truth of their contents). 3 Joseph Stromberg, How Does the Tiny Waterbear Survive in Outer Space?, Smithsonian Magazine, (Sept. 11, 2012) (available at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/ science-nature/howdoes-the-tiny-waterbear-survive-in-outer-space-30891298). 5 extreme temperatures and can withstand pressure and radiation thousands of times stronger than what a human could endure. Tardigrades can survive in such conditions due to their ability to enter a dehydrated state that closely resembles death. App'x at 150. This state involves a tardigrade curling up into a ball called a tun, [and] reducing its Willow Gabriel, Goldstein Lab, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (May 20, 2007) metabolic activity to as low as .01 available at: https://www.flickr.com/ photos/waterbears/1614095719. percent of normal levels. App'x at 150. A tardigrade can survive as a tun for over a decade, returning to its normal metabolic state in a few hours when immersed in water. When encountering other environmental stresses, tardigrades undergo additional transformations: if the oxygen in their water medium drops too low, they can stretch into a long, relaxed state to increase their water and oxygen intake, and if they encounter freezing conditions, they form a special cold-resistant tun that helps prevent the formation of ice crystals on their body. App'x at 150. Scientists 6 believe the tardigrades' ability to survive in outer space derives from their ability to survive extreme conditions on Earth. In 2007, a group of European researchers conducted the first research project to evaluate the ability of tardigrades to survive under open space conditions, known as Tardigrades in Space or TARDIS. App'x at 144. They exposed a sample of dehydrated tardigrades to the vacuum and solar radiation of outer space for ten days. The tardigrades were able to survive space vacuum without loss and some even survived combined exposure to space vacuum and solar radiation. App'x at 140. Given their findings, the researchers declared the experiment to represent the first record of an animal surviving simultaneous exposure to space vacuum and solar/galactic radiation. App'x at 142.4 Two additional experiments involving tardigrades in space were conducted, one by the Russian Federal Space Agency and the other by the Italian Space Agency. As reported in Scientific American, the Russian Federal Space Agency arranged for a space probe to carry samples of Earth life to one of Mars' 4 See K. Ingemar Jönsson, et al., Tardigrades Survive Exposure to Space in Low Earth Orbit, 18 Current Biology 17 (Sept. 9, 2008) (available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/ science/article/pii/S0960982208008051). 7 moons. Tardigrades were among the organisms chosen for the experiment, due to their ability to repair DNA damage. App'x at 154. In addition, BBC Nature reported in 2011 that the Italian Space Agency sponsored a project to investigate the impact of short-duration spaceflight on a number of microscopic organisms. App'x at 158. One experiment, the Tardkiss, planned to expose colonies of tardigrade[s] to different levels of ionising radiation during the spaceflight to help determine how radiation affects the way tardigrades' cells work. App'x at 158. Overall, while not crediting the truth of the matters asserted in the studies, this Court notes that the tardigrades' unique ability to survive in extreme conditions, including apparently in the vacuum of space, has been the subject of scientific research and public discussion. Tardigrades have also been the subject of fictional works, in addition to the works at issue in this case. In 2010, a children's fantasy novel featured Otto, a gargantuan tardigrade that was the size of an elephant. App'x at 134 (quoting Tony DiTerlizzi, The Search for Wondla 110, 206 (2010)). In 2013, a science fiction novel referred to the ability of tardigrades to resist radiation. App'x at 135 (citing Sir Terry Pratchett, The Science of Discworld IV: Judgment Day (2013)). In 2014, Cartoon Network aired the fifth season of a television series 8 Adventure Time, an episode of which featured a creature called Grass Bear based on a tardigrade. App'x at 135. And in 2015, an animator posted an animated video to YouTube featuring Captain Tardigrade, a half-man, halftardigrade traveling in space. App'x at 136 (citing Ian Miller, Captain Tardigrade: Defender of the Multiverse, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU rz4CtGuOM).