Meme Reservoir

You’d never guess from looking at these clips that the millimeter-long tardigrade is the world’s toughest animal, found from deep ocean to Himalayan mountaintops, able to survive at a single degree above absolute zero.

How tough are tardigrades? They require water to live, but in a pinch can drop their metabolism to a hundredth of normal and wait — up to a decade if necessary — until it’s wet again.  In this so-called cryptobiotic state they can shrug off lethal radiation doses and…