Nappy Muvers Dei 2014

Nappy Muvers Dei 2014


(Especially for my own mother Adelaide (Della) and for all mothers living and past.)


      Mother earth defines you well. The longest rivers and largest mountains get to the heart of you. Mother of all mothers who I gargled my very first sounds for. Mum, the first imprint that put me together, the garden of mum I grow in, the rich soil and the vast sky and fresh life water that made me real, in the flesh and in the mind, i think. Cheers for that.

For the countless thousands of hours spent tolerating my little bossy boots stomping about your house like a screaming demon, I am sincerely indebted. For my territorial pissing and poop markings, and for my emotional terrorism around the terrible twos, I commend you on not making that my career: metaphorically pissing and/or shitting on people. Thanks for not returning my many declarations of war made against you, like Lao Tzu, you kept the peace and did not fall for my infant black-mail and emotional hijacking operations. Smarter than an eye for an eye.

By demonstrating your infinite compassion for me you win every vote and always come up top trumps. In a ruff and tuff' world i imagine that unsaddled sympathy cuts through the bullshit and gets to the very heart of the matter. Mother, the great reasoning, the oral tradition, all languages and tongues of the mother, and in you, my mother. A listening ear and a improvisational skill at speaking to me in her special way, her own way, each word full of sincerity, burning like good poetry into the symbol processor, into my brain. Mind meets first word at the mothers mouth, usually love, baby, oh, 'ouchi-ku' etc. I respect you for leaving enough space in my life to re-knit the semantics and the symbols together, or bind the meaning, and the symbols together.

Furthermore, to me you reflect the open source ideal of generally matrist traits in society, open, and so opposed to the current centralized closed authority crazed, war-mad, patrist traits in contemporary society, really, you do. And this is all credit to Dad too of course too, for not over-riding your advice to me and your own ways of dealing, simply based upon his male strength. The open society is where freedom and individual rights are cherished, and where powers of authority and government are limited to protect against greedy super-powerful states shitting on everybody with bombs, soft-drinks and celebrity brainwashing. This idea reflects your tolerance of my own social explorations and your balanced mixture of good advice with allowing for a large amount of freedom to go and more or less do what I liked, when I had demonstrated that I could survive out there without you and dad. You were always kind and sweet to friends and girl friends I invited into your house, you never put me on a guilt trip concerning sex. Similar to a generally matrist society at large, sex is treated openly and without taboo. A mothers mother knows how the circle of life works intimately, as Paul Krassner once put it: fuck socialism.

What man can know what it must be like to be a mother and see her child grow into a young adult, often reverting back to infantile tactics and strategies but now deployed from a much larger body and a louder voice? Mother encourages conversation and communication, river flows free. Talking about it can work it out, she says, this reflects the motherly oral tradition, opposed to writing things down into lists and fixing ideas onto a page in alphabetical and grammatical cages, but instead speaking them, playing with the speech and finding a way to express it in the moment. Keeping your wits about you, as she would say. Still, here I fixed this writing up for your contemplation and enjoyment on mothers day. It is just as relevant tomorrow and any other day mind you.

I am ever grateful to you for turning me onto the wonders of science and astronomy at an early age, kicking off my fascination with mystery, the unknown universe and questions like ‘where did we come from?, together with a loose Darwinian model wrapped up in your own special way of putting it, often landing splatt in the face of God. Way to go mum. Yeah, your love seems far greater than that of any God or mystical entity invoked from old dusty scripture. Thank the soul of Elvis and the Beatles for showing God the door in a way that maybe Nietzsche might have enjoyed, leading us into mums kitchen for a cup of tea, and then off into a Hawking universe. Like mount Snowdon or like the great river Severn, the water and the air and the earth, you are everywhere at he root of all the good stuff, the life cycle, the life affirming principle, the chaos.

I see a connection between you and the positive stereotype of the compassionate mother figure in the way you reason with altered states of consciousness. You broke away from the pervasive thinking of your generation which states that altered states are bad, anti-social and lead to criminal behavior unless they are sanctioned by the government, like alcohol, tobacco and sugar. For a non-cannabis user to come around to a tolerant and liberal attitude towards it seems like a great achievement and exemplary stance. And not just your own son but all people who choose to alter their consciousness in any which way they please, as long as they do not interfere and do harm to others. Many so called highly educated and intelligent people do not hold this compassionate view and show no sympathy for anybody who does not abide by the laws, teachings and doctrine they believe to be true, and not just regarding altered states of consciousness but alterations of anything and everything in society.

Mothers are generally friendly to mutation, no matter what you may turn into, a mother knows intuitively it will be a temporary trend and what lies underneath the cultural clothing we dress ourselves in: the naked vulnerable and impressionable baby ape.

So the term mother probably best sums up everything really, if it came down to just one word, which it rarely does. The ultimate holistic entity, more omnipotent than God, the mama matrix most mysterious contains the reproductive fertility magic of recursion, of recycling magic that make nourishment and life out of nothingness. You really are my everything. Mwah, that's a kiss x

Nappy muvers dei, steve

Cosmic Trigger Stage Play. Links, News, Details

Hi,

The Cosmic Trigger Stage Play is best described at the website, please visit and get involved. I did, and i am. Hope to see you.



From the website:

The Discordians Are Coming

In 1976 Ken Campbell staged Illuminatus in Liverpool. This production and the novel that it was based on irrevocably changed the lives of all who were involved, both performers and audiences, and wound up opening The Cottesloe at the National Theatre.

Conceived backstage by Ken and The Goddess of Chaos and Confusion, Daisy Campbell now proposes to re-invoke that mythic production, but this time telling the story that surrounds Illuminatus: the extraordinary life and times of its co-author, Robert Anton Wilson as the central thrust; the unstoppable force that was Ken Campbell; and some key scenes from Illuminatus woven through. As Ken would say, “this is an enthusiasts’ production”.


There have been a number of blog posts and news items about the play, plus the usual facebook page shenanigans. Take a look, it seems to be taking off....













Steve fly

Fungal Economics (2007) by Fly Agaric 23


Fungal Economics
branching words and
money walk

the shit into our future
your words
our words and their
words of air-sound-sutra


why is money and
how did it get all stinky
who issues it and how?
a coin for a cow
paper for gold
our money their money
overnight

who has the magic wands
the words and the rite
disorder of things and stuff
multi-ordinal terms fed to
herds like worms to morning
birds

credit/debit digit edit
where is the source
the root and sacred well
spring of your knowledge
our nohledge and their
scholedge
who issues shit

and how holy dung
holy chao
money exchanged
for words language and
economics co-ming-ling

honey does not grow on trees
the bees bring it to each
branch
the river bank connect
with moon goddess via
the rising and falling water
levels

make every river bank
a bank you can trust
and the fungi
facts decompose rotten
money theory

a natural fungi force
consumes carbon dioxide
and releases carbon
monoxide

like wise a new natural
economic order will

start with fungi
and mycelium as the
fiscal roots and financial
fibers that in the buginning
fed

all the money by
the process of decomposing
using smart drugs
depreciating truffle skins

the truly regenerative and
maximum interests inherent in the
fungal feeding
of the planetary and
inter-planetary bio-sphere
make most but not all forms
of banking and international
financial doings on this planet
seem deceptive

at best and damned sadistic
and apocalyptic at worst
new webworking tools
help to communicate more
scientifically how and
why mycelium networks
have spread into earths biosphere

in turn the field of fungal
economics seems less
of a joke to me
and more of a biological
fact observable in nature

for fly this fungal
economic reorder fits with
the animal and plant kingdom
and the propensity for doing more
with less

and maximizing information
output to the benefit of all
no dropping carcass seed
or shell left behind not
even zero is wasted

the whole biological spaceship
earth recycles energy freely
between species and
kingdoms of living systems

some very influential humans
on the other hand seem to
have a propensity for hoarding
life support
in all its forms

for a few chosen people
or a few International syndicates
at the expense of the many
--the Majority of humanity on
planet earth

who issues it and how
what is money and how did
it get that way, to paraphrase Ez

the fungal metaphor
maybe the most eloquent
and beautiful metaphor to
employ in 2008

pitched against unrestricted
global capitalism driven
by private interest and
crooked double crossed
intelligence tsars

depreciating currency
imitates the fungal process of
breaking down biological matter
making more room at the
bottom by recycling

transform and keep the process
moving along
if you stay in one place too
long with your savings

chemical compound interest
you will rot at the bottom of the pile
without jumping into a new
state of energy

by the magic transform process
see transbutation
holy communion and
the u.s fed bank of england

the deception and trickery
of the global banking
fraud-gamer community
is also mimicked

on a global scale within
fungal communities
in fact mushroom myceilium
germinate those very orchids
that so many banksters
are infatuated with

even penicillin and all its
synthesized relatives
are fungal entities
claimed patented and
exploited by global pharmo
corporations


the dream-drug in its
penicillin incarnation
fungal intelligence
has already penetrated the
money maze

not to mention all the
other medical applications
and drugs synthesized
from mushrooms and/or
fungal bacterium

but the poet with mould-money
and mushrooms spilling
from his mouth does not stop
here

mushrooms and fungus
metaphors deployed to
synergize human
financial intelligence

just the sprouting tip
of a swarming underground
body of evidence

sometimes sprout a fruiting
bodyblog and spilling
billions of its viral meme
spores into earths atmosphere
every second of every day
for a billion years to come

once the poet has sharpened
his gaze and the haze of terrestrial
primate politics and economics
has vanished in the maze

we can begin to revision
our future past present perfect
days all-at-once

an enpsychlopedia Fungi
galactica a languaging entity
a self-replicating fungal blogject
spore of the words

money and wind and
seeds and stars all-at-once

--fly agaric 23.
Amsterdam.


Footsauce:

Giles Chase: Shanigums Wave, Oillyseas, Publiners, A Sculpture of the Banker as an old man, Excommunicated and the albums Ballads and Strange Folk. Epiphenome’. Faben & Faben.
Ira Pod: The Dantales, ABS of Revolutions, 17 Stereotypes of Damnbiguation. Videoglyphic method. History is not a dream from which I am trying to awake. No Direction Press.
Martin McLure: The Gutterverb Autopsy, Misunderstanding Money, The road to Shennanigums Wave
James Shermon: Mystical doctrine of sports and greedy behavior
Nesta Venossa: The Wildstyle Grafitti Character as a Medium for Math.
J. Nathan Shaft: Skully Von’s Travels.
Sonny Cob Laughlin: Blooming Magnus Trilogy, Neuro-Trigger, Flasks of the really hot tea, The Windows Sunshine, BOG: Bogus Occupation Government, Quantum Theology,
Ali Fowley: The Book of flies, The book of the wall, poetry without tears, 111 and other writings.
Jacky Muller: Nine Joints to the moon, Operating manual for Shennanigums Wave, Sin-Energy-Zetitics, On the Path, Planet Terry Sociology.
Carson Wools: Citizen Murdoch, War of the Words, McGriff, C For Cake, Touch of Usury.
Manfred Humanski: Religion and Insanity, General Pendantics, X’tenshun Method.

--Steve Fly Agaric 23
Amsterdam.
Thursday, July 17, 2008/Saturday 11th January, 2014


The birth claws and death of santa by Steve Fly

THE BIRTH OF SANTA


snowdon falls

king kong is out hunting

mynah birds

blizzard strikes

kong shelters in a barn

where merry mary

is giving birth next to

a mare also giving

birth to two colts


the next morning

kong awakens

at new-grange

the barn has gone

child and colts remain

child is called santa


arguments begin

in the village about

who will be foster

father

a decision is made

on several dwarfs



SANTA AND HIS LITTLE WEAPONS


santa aged 9

overhears dwarf nick

speaking to his pals

about the future police

state


santa decides to

design some survival

weapons


kong's weapon of

brute strength is the only

one capable of withstanding

the santa spasm


age11 santa returns

from America where

he raged for 90 days

still in his battle fury and

everyone afraid


women reveal breasts

perform bum shaking

and twerk

to ease the frothing frenzy


santa catches

glance of a large pair

he stumbles

and quickly townsfolk

wrestle him into a

trash can full of cold

deer piss

which explodes


HOW SANTA GOT HIS CLAWS



at 14 santa

begs to join the boy-scouts

but is refused and runs off

hiding in chimneys

and barns


santa arrives at a

football field

he joins the game

takes the ball to his feet

and nobody can get it



back from him

eventually the other boys

gang up and attack santa

he goes into a red

hulk spasm and

beats them all upside

the head


shortly after

king kong spots santa

from the hill

and invites him to his

solstice barbecue


but kong forgets

after going fuzzy over

a girl called fay

and when santa arrives

at the kong palace

a guard dog is loose and

attacks santa

thinking him a red

faced intruder

santa kills the hound

in self-defence

throwing the dog down

a well


santa makes a vow to take

the dogs place as

guardian of the palace

a druid poet called penny

announces santa

will have a new name

santa claws



SANTA SCRUBS UP PRETTY GOOD



his hair was 

blue at the base

blood-red crimson

in the middle and

a crown of emerald

green


a triple helix

flaying out

shining strands rappelling

the shoulder


78 neat red-blue curls

around his neck and head

covered with one

hundred crimson

threads encrusted with

gems and weird fungus


four dimples in each cheek

yellow green crimson

and blue


seven bright pupils

eye-jewels in each

his feet have seven

toes and each hand

seven fingers

his nails shaped

like a hawks claw


SANTA CLAWS AT DEATH



santa was fed reindeer meat

stolen from reduced food

isle at Tesco by an old crone

tired and on the road

santa dropped his guard and lost

his magical red

spasm power


his reindeer and

his sleigh-driver were killed

outright by police horse

meat poison


santa was badly wounded

and entered the death trip

he tied himself to a rock

covered in lichen


he starts the perilous journey

through the bardo

questioning death

and the beyond

immortality and presents


flash-backs descend on his brow

the well

the dead dog

suddenly a crow lands

on his shoulder and whispers


the word rudolph

in his ear

which kills him with grief

and dispair

li sao

for sorrow


after one brief

reincarnation in a

bottle of sugar

santa came back again

in a cauldron

when a group of

kids started spitting

and singing to the

bubble-full elixir


new santa climbs out

the cauldron

only to be attacked

by more angry dwarves and

brutally cannibalised


his blood was drained

into two separate socks

frozen and put into storage

in the old kitchen next to

a dark wooden barn

as the snowdon falls



--Steve fly agaric 23
Amsterdam

23/12/13

CHU 3D Graffiti Cube 2010

CHU 3D GRAFFITI CUBE

Uploaded on 25 Oct 2010:           
OPENS 6pm, THURSDAY 28TH OCTOBER at CORDY HOUSE, CURTAIN ROAD, SHOREDITCH, EC2A 3BS. Then every Saturday & Sunday 2pm - 6pm until Sunday 14th Novemeber.

This is a walk in one person experience. Shoes off, glasses on, step inside the 3rd dimension! (Glasses provided).

Artwork by Chu. Cordy House by Mutate Britain.


Lo saturnalia

Lo saturnalia
drink new flesh 
news flash
equiknocking em

back with kwantum
mechanix

Fliegenschwamm
through Mukhomor
flowing on about many
moments

drunken bard pist
somber past
summert'

felt like tao-mouche
Amen EAT!
born from
nothing

woids into la
picene 
dark mother Earth:
early autumn

Δtummy full
mummiflied earth
nourishing dark belly of
night

Δrise
receptive southwestern
mother mother
plant

Weak yielding
and democratic mother
Dharmadollar ghosts
Holy dung

holy graal leg
Ξnds grow
sovereignty

To brew Tea
sacred ceremony
rise you fruiting
bodies

Great Eastern Sun
saves and radiates
all perception as gamb
owl mixed
and matched inside
our skull

inside and outside
our wombowl
and under the
almond-trees
goods

Lo!
lands of Cyberia
Siberia and Peteurasia
raise ya.

Persian Haoma plus
➄ indole Eztheotextz
plus
Chinese written
characters plus pranayama

may equal "stoned"
perception
concrete mixture

Steve Fly - World Piss Chapter 21.
(line edit 21/12/13)

360 Panorama Flight of the navigator

In London, on my last visit next to Victoria station sits a square glass metal and mirror area with a few shops and some offices The mirrored object presented a great chance for a pano' love, steve fly
Flight Of The Navigator in London

MAYAN MAXIMUS ARKESTRA

Steve The Fly is following up on the amiri Baraka treatise comparing the work of Charles Olson & Sun Ra with this episode featuring recordings by the principals plus selections by Robert Creeley, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Archie Shepp, Langston Hughes, Jack Kerouac, and William Butler Yeats.--John Sinclair.

http://www.radiofreeamsterdam.com/mayan-maximus-arkestra-fly-by-night-with-steve-the-fly-38/


Steve The Fly is following up on the amiri Baraka treatise comparing the work of Charles Olson & Sun Ra with this episode featuring recordings by the principals plus selections by Robert Creeley, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Archie Shepp, Langston Hughes, Jack Kerouac, and William Butler Yeats. - See more at: http://www.radiofreeamsterdam.com/mayan-maximus-arkestra-fly-by-night-with-steve-the-fly-38/#sthash.6iPrfemY.dpuf

The Garden Giant & Mycototes


Paul Stamets uncovers one of his developments in the mycoremediation field. "Mycototes" offer a mobile/expandable cultivation structure. The mycotes can be used for capturing E. coli, breaking down hydrocarbons, and that the mushrooms that form are "clean" with the caveat that if heavy metals are in the substrate, that would render them inedible.


Make a NEW mountain by Steve Fly

sweet mountain
sprawling giant
big enough to move
 hearts to
top to peak the top story
elegant

mountain top
from which views to the
four corners are processed
clear sight
for every
eye

brave bulge
of sheer rock
spurting out from

the ground
towards the sun
upwards, higher
reaching outword
released spells

snow capped
cloud
banked
 hugged
mount' of marvelous
awesomeness

the world hq
of snowdon
national

parks
open source
whistle-blowing
activity weekend
family research centre

mount Snowdon
is our vision
our headquarters
shamanic entities gather
about these rocks and trees

we rain psychic acid on
the
NSAGCHQ
curse to cripple
our ecosystem

snow what
everything comes out
NOW

we make it NEW
you cling to the
OLD

we make it NEW.
you cling to the OLD

we
make it
NEW

--Steve Fly


Microbiome of the upper troposphere: Species composition and prevalence, effects of tropical storms, and atmospheric implications.

Abstract

The composition and prevalence of microorganisms in the middle-to-upper troposphere (8–15 km altitude) and their role in aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions represent important, unresolved questions for biological and atmospheric science. In particular, airborne microorganisms above the oceans remain essentially uncharacterized, as most work to date is restricted to samples taken near the Earth’s surface. Here we report on the microbiome of low- and high-altitude air masses sampled onboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration DC-8 platform during the 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes campaign in the Caribbean Sea. The samples were collected in cloudy and cloud-free air masses before, during, and after two major tropical hurricanes, Earl and Karl. Quantitative PCR and microscopy revealed that viable bacterial cells represented on average around 20% of the total particles in the 0.25- to 1-μm diameter range and were at least an order of magnitude more abundant than fungal cells, suggesting that bacteria represent an important and underestimated fraction of micrometer-sized atmospheric aerosols. The samples from the two hurricanes were characterized by significantly different bacterial communities, revealing that hurricanes aerosolize a large amount of new cells. Nonetheless, 17 bacterial taxa, including taxa that are known to use C1–C4 carbon compounds present in the atmosphere, were found in all samples, indicating that these organisms possess traits that allow survival in the troposphere. The findings presented here suggest that the microbiome is a dynamic and underappreciated aspect of the upper troposphere with potentially important impacts on the hydrological cycle, clouds, and climate.

RAWAGI: Robert Anton Wilson Artificial General Intelligence.



Since the development of raw360 in the summer of 2010, i have mused on and on about a RAW A.I. Or... i used the idea of such a thing to augment my research into the tale of the tribe, and tease out parts of RAW through his encyclopedic works that resonate, with some current theories in Artificial Intelligence, e.g, AGI: Artificial General Intelligence.

The recent news from IBM concerning the release of the WATSON A.I API for developers, brings much of my speculation much closer to the drawing board, and presents the possibility of 'testing my hypothesis' at some time in the future, if...i were to embark on this gigantic head exercise. For the time being i'll link you to an article about the new API, and a link to a post i made, roughly describing my approach to a RAW A.I or better yet, a RAWAGI: Robert Anton Wilson Artificial General Intelligence. 

More to come on this matter...

Love, steve fly.


I want to push the concept of the new raw360 environment forward a few imaginary steps, and predict new ways in which the user experience can be maximized to include real time activity (feedback) in various areas of RAW related studies.--fly, RAW A.I

"IBM announced today that it has opened up Watson to developers, including access to an API (or application programming interface) and tools for incorporating its cognitive computing into existing software. What Watson did on TV in 2011, crushing two quiz show champions with its encyclopedic knowledge and rapid response time, and what it’s doing for cancer researchers, scanning through whole archives of medical records and journaled papers, actually reading and understanding the text, as opposed to simply collecting excerpts based on keywords, it can now do for whoever’s willing to buy access."

http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/zero-moment/cognitive-computing-all-ibm-releases-legion-watsons?src=SOC&dom=tw

The Late Great Robert Anton Wilson Event Part 1 - John Higgs

The Late Great Robert Anton Wilson Event Part 1 - John Higgs Published on 3 Nov 2013 Watch Part 2: http://youtu.be/HsBWj5jNadw

 

And Part 2:

Published on 6 Nov 2013
The Late Great Robert Anton Wilson Event Part 2 - Daisy Eris Campbell

Acting: Oliver Senton with Kate Alderton, Nic Alderton, Josh Darcy, Mitch Davies, Nicholas Marcq.

Watch Part 1: http://youtu.be/cm7M7nTp07k

John Higgs (http://twitter.com/johnhiggs/ http://johnhiggs.com/)
Daisy Eris Campbell (http://twitter.com/DaisyEris/)
Hosted By Scott Wood of The London Fortean Society (http://twitter.com/ForteanLondon/ http://forteanlondon.blogspot.co.uk/)

at The Horse Hospital 23/Oct/2013


Bruce Sterling: Design Fictions/Citizens and the Public Imagination

Bruce Sterling & Markus Schmidt -- Design Fiction/Citizens and the Public Imagination Bruce Sterling -- author, journalist, editor, and critic. Best known for his ten science fiction novels, he also writes short stories, book reviews, design criticism, opinion columns, and introductions for books ranging from Ernst Juenger to Jules Verne. He is a contributing editor of WIRED magazine and writes a weblog. 2005 & 2011 he was "Visionary in Residence" Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. 2008 at the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam. And Guest Curator for the Share Festival of Digital Art & Culture, Torino, Italy.

Fruitfly evolved pictures of ants on its wings

A recently discovered G tridens fruitfly that has evolved a to have images of detailed, ant-like insects on each wing, complete with six legs, a thorax, antennae and a tapered abdomen. The fly uses the images defensively, waving them back and forth when threatened to create the illusion of massing ants. Many G Tridens varieties bear elaborate wing markings, but this one, discovered in Oman, is very striking. I think more beasties should have van-art bestowed on them by the strange world of evolution. http://boingboing.net/2013/11/08/fruitfly-evolved-pictures-of-a.html#more-267125


 



Biologists Name Newly Discovered Threadworm After Physicist Max Planck

My favourite news item of today concerns Max Plank and a thread worm. It already has the sound of a Lovecraftian science fiction drama to me. x steve fly

Biologists Name Newly Discovered Threadworm After Physicist Max Planck

"When Japanese biologist Natsumi Kanzaki and his German colleague Matthias Herrmann collected a stag beetle from an oak forest in Fukushima province, they had no idea at the time about the surprise the impressive insect concealed: a microscopic threadworm, completely unknown to the zoologists until then, was hidden on the beetle's body.

The official name Pristionchus maxplancki was bestowed on the new discovery in honour of theoretical physicist Max Planck (1858 -- 1947). The worm, only a millimetre long, becomes the first organism to carry the name of the Nobel laureate from Göttingen. -- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130709115148.htm

Extremophiles: Tardigrades

Out of this world

While adaptation to a single harsh habitat is impressive, there are species which can survive a variety: the rarer polyextremophiles.

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are tiny, eight legged animals which can survive extremes of heat and cold, low pressure and even high levels of radiation.

They have even survived exposure to space and as such are the undisputed champions of extreme environments.

Ingemar Jonsson, Associate Professor at Kristianstad University, is a specialist in tardigrade biology.
When asked what he considered their most impressive ability, he said: "Their ability to dehydrate completely when the surrounding conditions dry out, and stay in that state without any metabolism for many years or even decades, is clearly remarkable."

The way that tardigrades perform this drying-out act, however, is still a mystery.

"We know that the animal must somehow protect its basic cell structures from collapsing when water is withdrawn, and repair the damage that arises, but how this is done is unclear," Prof Jonsson.
Just like red flat bark beetles, dehydration protects tardigrades from freezing when the temperature drops, as their desiccated cells are safe from ice crystal formation.

High resolution image of a tardigrade
Microscope images reveal the tardigrade's unusual appearance
In December 2012, researchers reported observations of tardigrades able to survive being cooled to just over absolute zero, less than -270C.

They also have amazing radiation resistance: they are able to survive a thousand times more radiation than would prove fatal to humans. Again, this is due to their remarkable healing talent.

"We believe that the ability to repair damaged DNA is one of the main components of this system," said Prof Jonsson, whose recent studies have been focused on these mechanisms.

"Finding out how this works would be a breakthrough for our knowledge on tardigrades, but it would also be of considerable interest for many other fields of biology and medicine where DNA repair play a central role."

So while understanding these creatures is of interest in itself, future human benefits may also come from studies of how the extremophiles survive in the supposedly inhospitable parts of our universe.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/21923937