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| Issue 28: | April 2025 |
| Poem: | 70 words |
| Poet’s Note: | 75 words |
By Rose Mary Boehm
Water Bears
Already they are everywhere. They can thrive where humans only dream. Tardigrades can live in outer space, are champions of survival, can stop their biological clock ... and we seem to want what they have. Let me get old. I don’t need tardigrade cells, do not want to live forever. It’ll be bad enough to see the results of our hubris from some no-place in the sea of unmaking.
Poet’s Note: Emphasis is mine in the quotation below:
“A new study from the University of Wyoming discovered that certain proteins (used by tardigrades to enter biostasis) created gels in human cells that slowed down its metabolisms. This discovery could lead to breakthroughs in slowing the aging process as well as storage technologies for human cells.”
—From an article by Darren Orf in Popular Mechanics (3 April 2024):
“Tardigrades Could Extend the Shelf-Life of Humanity, Study Suggests”
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