Thứ Sáu, 10 tháng 6, 2016

Find out as our top 10 countdown of the most extreme jumpers on the planet - Part2

Found out next on The Most Extreme.We're halfway through the countdown, and our search for the fifth most extreme jumping animal on the planet has taken us to the heart of Mongolia and the Gobi Desert.
 The kangaroos of Australia are a half a world away. Or are they? This is a kangaroo.



 Well, it's actually a kangaroo rat. A rodent that uses those long back legs just like a kangaroo.
 But the kangaroo rat takes hopping to new extremes, because a single bound can carry it over four meters.
 That's an incredible 45 times its body length.
 Imagine if a tall football player could jump that far. It's hard to defend against a player that could leap from end zone to end zone. Such extreme jumping hasn't gone unnoticed.

 But coming in at number four in the countdown is an animal that would be a star on any stage in the world.
 Ballet dancers are the most graceful professional jumpers in the world. They train for years to stand on the very tips of their toes. But our next animal in the countdown has been jumping on tiptoe for millions of years.
 This is a Klipspringer, the ballerina of the rocks. This dainty little antelope lives high on rocky outcrops that jut up from the plains of Africa. Early Dutch settlers named them Klipspringer. It literally means rock jumper, and it's easy to see how they got their name.



 Their extreme jumping ability is also useful to keep out of the clutches of Honolulu zookeeper, Greg Hamilton.
 Like any ballerina, the Klipspringer dances lightly on the tips of its amazing toes. - In the middle of this hoof, this split hoof, is a fleshy area that allows them to grip fairly readily to rock surfaces, and allow them to maintain their positions on the rocks. Their ability to escape, basically, is to get into areas that are inaccessible to other animals.
 These guys can land on a shelf that is about the size of a quarter and stay there.But what makes these rock hoppers different from other mountain goats are their extreme leaps. The Klipspringer may be tiny, but it can leap 15 times its own height. That's more than seven meters.
 The best Olympic high jumpers can't clear even twice their height. But if they could jump like a Klipspringer, they could leap from the shoulder of the Statue of Liberty and soar more than twenty meters right over the torch.
 It's no wonder that looking after such extreme leapers can be a bit of a challenge.

Even though Klipspringers have four built in pogo sticks, they're still only number four in our most extreme countdown.
 It seems incredible that anything could leap ahead of Klipspringers, Desert Rats or Kangaroos, but coming in at number three in our countdown is an animal that can jump so far, it's frightening. That's coming up on The Most Extreme.

If you're frightened of spiders, just wait til you see what these guys can do. Leaping in at number three in the countdown are the jumping spiders. These guys are the lions of the spider world. They have exceptional eyesight, which means they can spot their lunch from a long way off. Then, like a big cat, they'll slowly sneak up on their prey and pounce.



 And what a pounce it can be. The jumping spider can really jump. Those eight legs can push it almost two meters.
 That's 100 times its body length. A human athlete who could jump 100 times his body length might as well be flying.
 It would be like leaping over clear over two jumbo jets, nearly 150 meters. You'd think that to jump such enormous distances, the spider's legs would be amazing. They'd have to have bulging thighs packed with muscles. That's what human jumpers need. That's because human jumpers need well-developed thighs and firm butts to get their bodies up into the air and to absorb the shock of the landing.

But safety lines are not enough for our next contender in the countdown. There's one animal that jumps so high, it needs a parachute.

 At number two in our countdown is an animal that lives in some truly disgusting places. Frogs are legendary jumpers. Anyone who's taken a good look at a frog knows that it's leaping ability lies in its long, long legs. When scientists compare the power available in a frog's leg muscles to the distance they jumped, they discovered a frog can leap up to seven times further than was thought physically possible.
 So the scientists took a closer look at the frog's legs. They discovered a trigger mechanism that allows the muscles to stretch the tendons, store the energy, and release it in that explosive leap.
 High in the forests of southeast Asia lives a tree frog with a difference. It's a frog with extra webbing between its toes, so when it leaps out of a tree, it opens four little parachutes. These flying frogs can glide more than fifteen meters between trees. Imagine being able to jump 150 times your body length. You'd be able to leap clear over the Titanic, a distance of nearly 300 meters. Then you really would be king of the world.

But the incredible frog is still only number two in our most extreme countdown. We've seen nine contenders. They're the best of the best. Only one animal has more extraordinary powers.
 It's number one, and it's coming up next on The Most Extreme. You don't have to travel far to find the most extreme jumper on the planet.

 In fact, it's often too close for comfort. It can spend months waiting patiently for entomologists like Ruud Kleinpaste to return home from holiday.
 Vibrations on the floorboard signal the time to leap into action. A leap of 30 centimeters may be one small jump for a bug, but it's one giant leap for mankind. We're talking a leap that's 220 times your body length. With the super powers of a flea, we'd be able to clear the Brooklyn Bridge.
 That's nearly 400 meters. But a flea can also jump more than 150 times its own height. That's like jumping over not one, but two Statues of Liberty, more than 200 meters.



Find out as our top 10 countdown of the most extreme jumpers on the planet - Part1

 But how do they measure up to the best jumpers in the animal world? Find out as our top 10 countdown of the most extreme jumpers on the planet takes us to surprising new heights.
 It's easy to keep one jump ahead of the field when leaping's taken to it's Most Extreme.
 Earth is a planet of extremes. Extreme places. And extreme animals. But some animals are more extreme than others.
 Join us as we count down to find the most unusual, the most extraordinary, The Most Extreme.
 Leaping straight into the countdown at number 10 are animals born to be jumpers. Rabbits and hares can't walk. They can't trot. They have to jump. All the time. They kick off the countdown because those big back legs are incredibly powerful.

 Watching a bunny hopping gently in a field, you'd never guess the extreme distance it can leap. You have see them sprinting to discover how far they can jump in a single bound. The rabbit's back legs are like coiled springs.
 They power the leaps that can carry the rabbit 10 times it's body length. That's a jump of nearly six meters.
 Compare that to the distance Olympic athletes can jump. If you could leap like a rabbit, you'd jump twice as far as any human in history, more than 18 meters. Our leg muscles are about the same strength as a rabbit's, so how can they jump so much further than us? Well, it all comes down to body weight. They heavier you are, the harder it is for those muscles to push you off the ground. That's why light-weight bunnies are such extreme jumpers. But which bunny is the best of the best?

Biologists Dave Riherd and Paul Hahn have hopped down to little Mexico in Los Angeles. For hiding somewhere in these market stalls is the most unusual animal in the countdown. Our number nine is truly extreme, because these guys first have to find a plant. Well, a bean, actually.




 But no ordinary bean. These are Mexican jumping beans. But surely jumping beans are just a joke, a novelty you only see in old comedies.
 But do Mexican jumping beans really jump?  For these beans, jumping is no joke. It's a matter of survival.
 But how do they do it? What makes a bean jump? To find out, you need to take a look inside, at the most unusual jumping device in the world. It's a caterpillar.
And it's this caterpillar that makes the bean jump because it hates getting hot. It'll throw itself around inside the shell to get the bean on the move. The Mexican jumping caterpillar is just trying to get its house back in the shade. For a bug in a bean, this is a pretty extreme jumping ability.
 But our countdown of the most extreme jumping animals on the planet is just warming up. Forget about bouncing bugs and hopping hares, coming up are creatures that'll get you screaming for more, while others will get you hopping mad or even, diving for cover. That's coming up next on The Most Extreme.

 How'd you like to live on the highest mountains in the world? It's a land of ice and precipice. And it's home, sweet home for the Tibetan Bharal, a mountain sheep that lives life on the edge. Bharal are number eight in our countdown because they're extraordinary rock-hoppers. They have to be. When you live above 4,000 meters in these mountains, one slip can be fatal.




 Male Bharal are extremely confident in their jumping ability. In fact, once their testosterone starts pumping, they show off by trying to knock each other off the cliff.
 Bharal may be happy bouncing off rocks, but most humans try to hang on for dear life. We use ropes, crampons, anything to get a grip on the cliff. But not the Bharal. All their climbing equipment is packed into their feet. Those hooves are rubbery to increase their gripping potential. And they're flexible.
 They can spread their toes out to grasp the ground, and to act as brakes when sliding down an icy slope.
 And since human mountaineers can't tiptoe down the rocks like Bharal, they've had to come up with a different way of getting down the mountain. It's a little extreme, but a lot faster.

From mad mountaineers, bouncing beans and racing rabbits, we've bounded through three animals in our countdown.


 But coming up, there's a whole army of extreme jumpers. These are the hoppers from hell and they're next on  Number seven in our extreme countdown may be small, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in sheer numbers.




 These are locusts. It's a good, old-fashioned biblical plague of horrible hoppers. Locusts are a kind of grasshopper and they can really hop over a lot of grass. The locusts' huge hind legs can kick them over one meter, or 20 times their body length. Imagine if a basketball player could jump like a locust.
 How'd you like to be able to jump ninety meters for the ultimate slam dunk? Basketball players would kill to have legs like a locust.
 That's because, in addition to the massive muscles in its thighs, the locust has elastic bands in its knees.
 These bands are like stretchy springs that store energy. They work a bit like our tendons, which store enough energy to let us snap our fngers.

 At number six in the countdown is an animal the western world only discovered when European explorers first arrived in Australia.
 Accoring to legend, when they first set foot on this bizarre new land, they saw a strange animal hopping about.
 So they asked a local Aboriginal what it was called.




 The Aboriginal said, "Kangaroo." Unfortunately, in Aboriginal, kangaroo doesn't mean large, jumping animal, but translates as, I don't understand your question, so now Australia's home to more than 60 species of I don't understand your questions.
 But no matter what they're called, kangaroos are extreme athletes. It's not just the fact that they're incredible jumpers, they're also extremely fast. A sprinting kangaroo would clean up at the Olympics. It travels twice the speed of the world's fastest sprinters. That means that it would win the Olympic 100-meter sprint in a time of four seconds.
 And then over in the long jump pit, every nine meter bounce would win an Olympic gold medal. But the really amazing thing about these extreme athletes is that the faster a kangaroo travels, the less energy it uses.
 When we wanna run faster, we have to increase the number of strides we take each second. All this extra effort means we burn much more energy sprinting than walking. But kangaroos are different.
 To go faster, a kangaroo doesn't take more steps. It simply increases the length of its jump. And the further the kangaroo jumps, the more energy it's able to store in the massive tendons of its legs and tail.
 In fact, it's so good at storing jumping energy that it's actually easier for a kangaroo t o run than to walk.
 But some people have made use of a different method of storing energy for a high jump.


Thứ Năm, 9 tháng 6, 2016

Top 10 animals with the most extreme smarts - Part1

We think we're pretty smart,  but are there Einsteins in the natural world?  We're counting down the top 10 animals  with the most extreme smarts  and seeing how they compare to our best brains  in the business .
 Discover that a little knowledge  can be a dangerous thing,  when thinking's taken to the most extreme .
 Earth is a planet of extremes,  extreme places,  and extreme animals,  but some animals are more extreme than others .
 Join us as we count down to find  the most unusual and the most extraordinary  on The Most Extreme .
Dogs are much more than man's best friend .They're number 10 in the countdown,  because dogs are smart enough to be  man's best golf buddy .


Because wolves live  in large social groups, they need to know how many  how many friends and enemies they have in the pack . That's why their brains are capable  of some simple arithmetic. But when we domesticated the wolf,  things changed a little . All breeds of domestic dog have smaller brains  than the wolf, perhaps because life  is so much easier out of the wild .
 And when it comes to thinking,  sometimes size does matter . The brain of a beagle  weights about 70 grams .
 Compare that to the size of the organ  we do our thinking with . The 1300 grams of gray wrinkled jelly we call our brain  is made up of 100,000,000,000 nerve cells  called neurons . And all those neurons firing their electrochemical messages  produce enough tiny bursts of electricity  to power a light bulb .


We're just waking up to the extreme intelligence  of the animal that's  Number nine in the countdown. Honeybees are smart,  even though they've got a brain the size of a pinhead . We think we're clever because we invented  languages to communicate . Well, bees are number nine in the countdown  because they've also invented a way of talking  to each other about food .
 When a scout bee finds a particularly good food source,  it races back to the hive with the news .The trouble is, bees can't speak,  and in the darkness of the hive they can't see either . That's why they've come up with a language of their own,  and the language is dance . Imagine if we had to communicate like the honeybee .
 Hopefully the waggle dance will not be coming  to a nightclub near you . Scientists are seldom seen in nightclubs either,  which has left them lots of time to decode  the incredible dance of the honeybee,  and they've even had time to invent  a way to talk to bees in their own language .
 RoboBee may look a little primitive,  but this mechanical bee dances beautifully,  especially for a bug with no legs . But scientists discovered that the most important part  of RoboBee is the nozzle that delivers  a sample of nectar .
 Bees got very angry very quickly  at any impostor that didn't throw up  during the dance routine .Thanks to the work of scientists and RoboBee,  we're just starting to appreciate  the incredible intelligence of the brainiest bugs  in the countdown.




We may have outsmarted  the first two contenders,  but you'd better get your brain into gear,  because coming up are animals so smart  they've really got something to sing about .
 That's next on The Most Extreme . The next  contender in our countdown of extreme smarts has to be clever to stay one jump ahead  of the big bad wolf . No wonder pigs are number eight in the countdown .



To number seven in our countdown  of extreme smarts is the horse . This horse is about to begin his daily workout,  but the only muscle he's exercising is his brain,  because he's being tested at the Equine Research Foundation  in Aptos, California .
 So how do you find out what goes on  inside a horse's head?  Researchers have developed this system  to discover if he can understand concepts  such as large and small .
 Choose the small symbol, and you get a tasty treat .
 This may look like a game,  but researchers are discovering  that horses are smarter than we thought .
 It seems that horses are thinking creatures  that respond best to humans who acknowledge  their minds and emotions .  they can talk to the animals with sign language . It may not be a great conversation,  but by discovering how horses learn,  researchers are doing a lot to narrow the communication gap .


You have be smart to survive the winter,  and in this forest, animals don't get any smarter than the snow monkey .
 It's number six in the countdown, because just like humans,  snow monkeys are famous for their ability to learn. Imagine if you were stuck in a forest  and there was a blizzard coming . Would you find shelter in a tree or do the intelligent thing  and head to the bottom of the hill for a nice hot bath?  30 years ago, this female snow monkey called Tokeewa  is thought to have seen people bathing  in these hot pools .
 Unlike any monkey before her,  the young Tokeewa decided to join them .
 Now the whole troupe has learned to keep warm  in the pool in a classic case of  monkey see monkey do .
 It's this giant intellectual leap  that pushed the snow monkey  to number six in the countdown .
 After all, it's not easy coming up  with totally original ideas,  even if you're the most famous thinker in the world . in the late 1800s, one couple feared their child  may have been mentally challenged,  because he didn't speak until he was three .
 He did spend a lot of time building with blocks  and spent hours and hours solving puzzles .
 Later in life he'd say, "It's not that I'm so smart . "It's just that I stay with problems longer."  That problem child was none other than Albert Einstein,  who, relatively speaking, had the most brilliant mind  of the 20th century .
 Snow monkeys are number six in the countdown  because, just like Einstein,  they can occasionally come up with amazing conceptual leaps,  even if sometimes youngsters can get  a little too clever for their good .
 But if there's one thing a snow monkey  likes more than a hot bath, it's being groomed . Grooming is not only the social glue  that binds the troupe together,  but it's a practical way of getting rid of parasites  like lice and ticks .
 And some monkeys like grooming so much,  they get a little carried away . Perhaps the expanse of fur on a deer is irresistible  for monkeys that love to groom . But there's one super smart monkey  that's found another use for the ticks it finds on deer . If you'd like to be groomed yourself,  but you don't have any ticks of your own,  you can borrow some . This monkey has learned that by adopting a deer tick,  he can give his friends hours of fun  combing through his fur .
Even though  the snow monkey's s'no fool,  it still only numbers six in our countdown  of extreme smarts .
 For coming up is an animal that goes nuts  when it gets the green light,  and alien intelligences that look out of this world .



In the world, the ones that scare us the most are crows and ravens .For centuries, we've associated them with darkness and death,  but could the real reason for our distrust  be due to their extreme intelligence?  Crows are number five in the countdown because they're smart enough to use  our own technology to crack some tricky problems .
 To see these great minds at work, you just have to travel to a university campus in Japan .This crow likes eating walnuts,  but breaking open the hard shell's a real problem .
 The crows figured out how to use  some four-wheeled nutcrackers .because it's clever enough to drop its dinner  on a crosswalk. Only when it gets the green light  will it safely secure its snack. But crows aren't the only creatures with calculating minds .

Top 10 animals with the most extreme smarts - Part2

Contender is definitely well-armed and dangerous . It may look terrifying, but the octopus  isn't attacking the diver . It's just collecting data .


 That's because each tentacle has a mind of its own,  and every sucker can taste and touch .
 By covering the diver in this sensitive embrace,  the octopus is just trying to learn as much as it can .
 It's number four in the countdown  because its central nervous system is so big  and so complex it rivals that of many birds and fish . In fact, the octopus is one of the fastest learners  in the world .  but measuring its intelligence is difficult .
 If it was a human, we could use an IQ test,  and if it scored well, it could become a member  of a very special club .A battle of wits between intelligent octopi,  clever crows, and wise monkeys . But stay tuned, because coming up is an animal  that really gives us an earful . That's next on The Most Extreme .


   In our countdown of extreme smarts  is the dolphin . Off the coast of Brazil, the dolphin's big brain  brings it up close and personal with fishermen .
 But the catch of the day isn't dolphin . It's mullet that the dolphins have herded  close to shore .
 Like underwater sheepdogs, (relaxed music)  the dolphins even signal to the fishermen  when to cast their nets, and in return,  the dolphins get to eat the mullet missed by the net .
 It's a really clever trick that humans and dolphins  have been practicing in Brazil for several hundred years .
 But learning this behavior is no problem  for the animal with the closest thing  to human intelligence in the sea .
 Like us, dolphins are highly sociable animals .
 They learn by playing games,  and one of their most popular sports is seaweed soccer . Scientists working with dolphins have discovered  that these skillful swimmers are so smart  they may even be able to recognize themselves  as individuals . This kind of intelligence is only seen  in great apes and humans . (upbeat music) But it isn't easy  trying to figure out just how smart dolphins are .
 In the past, some people have tried  to measure intelligence by taking a close look at the skull .The dolphin actually makes far more noises than we can hear . It fires off ultrasonic clicks and whistles  like a submarine using sonar . By listening to the echoes of these ultrasonic sound waves,  it can build up a sonar picture of the world around it . The beauty of ultrasound is that when it contacts a fish,  some of the ultrasonic waves can pass  right through the skin .
 The beam may then reflect back off the bones or guts,  resulting in a number of different echoes .
 Some scientists believe that these echoes  are processed in the dolphin's brain  to form a 3D image of the fish,  which explains why the dolphin's brain is so big . It takes a lot of brainpower to be able to  hunt by ultrasound .


At the Honolulu Zoo, but this is no ordinary dinner party . Part of the zoo's enrichment program  is to turn lunchtime into a lesson in problem-solving .
 But number two in the countdown definitely won't starve,  for chimpanzees can sometimes be  just as smart as us . But that's hardly surprising, given that we share  up to 98% of our genetic material .Most chimpanzees will be lucky  to reach the intellect of a four year old human . Hardly surprising, since even a four year old  has a brain three times the size of a chimp .But chimpanzees are still clever enough  to copy the most important human skill of all . They make tools . Wild chimpanzees produce over 20 different types of tools .
 This hammer and anvil may look simple to us,  but it can take up to six years  to develop the proper technique .


In our countdown of extreme smarts  is the parrot . This is a kea, a mountain parrot that lives  in the Southern Alps of New Zealand .
 So what's so smart about this bird?  As a part of an international test of animal IQ,  the kea was challenged with a seven-stage puzzle .
 To get the food, it had to pull levers, push buttons,  turn handles, and pull out a wooden cart . Up against the best brains in the animal kingdom,  the parrot couldn't wait to get started . In a little over a minute, the parrot won the food  and the competition . In these mountains, it's the kea's playful curiosity  that gives them the edge . That's how they discovered that shearwater burrows  contain nutritious meals . Unfortunately, a young kea also has to learn  that making an omelet isn't as easy as it looks .
 Thanks to a remarkable brain  and a beak like a Swiss Army knife,  the kea can crack even this puzzle .
 But when it comes to smart parrots,  one really stands out from the flock .  is estimated to have the problem-solving skills  of a six year old child,  and all this with a brain the size of a walnut .That's why the parrot is number one  in our countdown of extreme smarts .
 For when it comes to thinking,  the parrot really is  the most extreme .


Thứ Tư, 8 tháng 6, 2016

Counting down the top 10 living dead of the animal kingdom - Part2

That's number four in the countdown . It can be found high in the mountains of New Zealand .
 In summer it finds shelter under broken slabs of rock,  venturing out at night to feed . It's a flightless cricket called a weta .

 It may be a vegetarian, but it's one tough insect  with an armor plated body and massive jaws,  and like all insects, it's cold blooded .
 So when the temperature drops,  the weta can't generate heat to keep warm .
 Even though it hides deep in crevices in the rock,  up here it can get very cold indeed .
 But this doesn't worry the weta . It's such a cool customer that it simply freezes solid . Its heart stops beating, and all brain function ceases .
 It can survive temperatures down to minus 10 degrees,  even when 82% of the water in its body is frozen .
 The weta is the largest insect in the world  that can survive being frozen . It's number four in the countdown  because it can spend several months as a popsicle . Strangely enough, all kinds of objects  can benefit from a stint in the deep freeze . This is no ordinary freezer .
 It uses liquid nitrogen to chill  It's part of a treatment developed  by a company called TechSpec  to freeze things like razor blades,  golf clubs,  and even pantyhose .
 but defrosting a living animal is another .
 Yet, when the weather warms up,  after weeks of suspended animation  the weta simply comes back to life .
 Scientists are still unsure exactly how  the weta manages to stop ice crystals  rupturing the cells in its body . So it will be some time before we can cheat death  by jumping in the deep freeze .

Our last two contenders turned into the living dead  as a way to survive cold winters .
 Some animals do the same thing in the desert,  even if it means being buried alive for seven years .
 Could it be that our next contenders  hold the answer to long distance space travel?  In some parts of the world, drought can be devastating,  especially if you're a small fish in a little pond .
 As the water level drops,  most fish are left gasping for breath,  their gills unable to extract oxygen from the air .


But our next contender has come up  with a way of coping with drought . It's a fish that virtually dies for up to four years . This is a lungfish .
 It gets its name because, unlike other fish,  it can take in oxygen directly from the air .
 So when it runs out of water,  the lungfish digs down into the mud .
 It coats itself in mucus which dries into a leathery cocoon,  where it can wait out the drought .
 Unfortunately, there's another use for dried river mud .
 The lungfish doesn't worry about being built into a brick .
 It's shut down so many systems that it's virtually dead .
Even after four years of drought, a little rain is enough to soften the bricks and to awaken the lungfish so that it can dig itself out of its muddy coffin .
The lungfish is an extraordinary survivor, but there's another desert dweller that can last even longer without water 


About 340 million years ago  ancient amphibians crawled onto the land,  and today frogs are still amateurs  at the business of living out of water .
 Their skin must be kept moist because they breathe  through the entire surface of their bodies .
 Frogs can even drink through their skin,  absorbing moisture from damp soil .
 So how could any frog survive in a desert?  Beneath a dry lake bed in central Australia,  there's a frog that's been buried alive for seven years .
 The burrowing frog sits as if dead,  wrapped in a waterproof cocoon of old skin cells .
 It's lowered its metabolism by 90%,  yet over all this time it doesn't lose  muscle mass or strength, unlike humans .
But in the meantime, the frog is already  a lifesaver for the Aborigines .
 They know that all it takes is a gentle squeeze  to access the emergency supply of drinking water  stored inside the frog's bladder .
 The burrowing frog may be an extraordinary survivor,  but it still can't compete with the animal   


  That's number one in the countdown . We've seen the nine contenders . They've found ways to come back from the grave .
 Only one animal is a more extreme  example of the living dead . If we were like the animal at number one in the countdown  we really would be Mr. Invincible .

 We'd be able to survive temperatures  lower than minus 230 degrees Celsius,  and as high as 150 degrees . We could withstand 1,000 times  more radiation than any mortal . But most incredible of all,  we'd be able to survive without any water  for 120 years .
 So what is this animal with superhuman powers?  Meet the water bear . Normally this tiny animal waddles around  on its four pairs of plump little legs,  sucking the juices out of moss .
 It doesn't look very tough, but it can survive  the harshest conditions because  it basically curls up and dies .
 Let's say that things start getting  too dry for a water bear .
 Somehow it can lose 99% of the water in its body,  retract all its legs, and become practically indestructible .
 That's how it can survive such extremes of cold,  heat,  radiation,  and even in a vacuum, like that found in space .
 After all, a water bear can come back to life after being more or less dead for more than a century, and that's why, when it comes to the sleeping beauties of the natural world the water bear really is the most extreme .