Tardigrades can survive being boiled, frozen to near absolute zero, blasted with radiation, and exposed to the vacuum of space, and they do it by drying themselves into a glass-like state where every

Tardigrades survive vacuum, near-absolute-zero cold, lethal radiation, and 30-year droughts by drying themselves into a vitrified husk where metabolism stops entirely. The biology is now flying on space stations and crashed into the Moon. A tardigrade cooled to near absolute zero, then pulled out, then sprinkled with water, will start walking again. So will one exposed to extreme heat, one held in a vacuum chamber at the pressure of low Earth orbit, and one hit with intense gamma radi... [10210 chars]