h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Even South Park featured tardigrades recently.


And here's a rather unsubstantiated story of extraterrestrial organisms observed on the ISS.

The Russians seem to have a rather loose definition of extraterrestrial. If it was clean when it launched anything found on the outside surfaces must be "extraterrestrial".

Anyway.... more water bears. HUZZAH!

http://www.space.com/38922-extraterrestrial-bacteria-international-space-station.html

Reminescent of how ballooning spiders were discovered... Embedded in the windsheilds of the Mach 3 SR-71 blackbird spy plane.

they're only one milimeter long, for the most part. And they go dormant if they dry out. I wouldn't worry about them, unless I was a bit of algae or moss.

...but they're squirmy little worms and I'm allergic...

Don't open that then

Are you allergic just to them, or to a range of lifeforms? How can you tell, when you feel allergic symptoms, which creatures are causing them?

Its official.

Tardigrades are causal of household dust allergies, some forms of rhinitis, and scabies.

Its not all tardigrades in creation, to be sure.

Aah!

Scabies organisms:

http://www.google.com/search?q=scabies+microorganism,+images&newwindow=1&client=tablet-android-verizon&prmd=insv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_jtnq7-zXAhVPImMKHal3DsEQ_AUIESgB

https://www.google.com/search?q=scabies+microorganism,+images&newwindow=1&client=tablet-android-verizon&prmd=insv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_jtnq7-zXAhVPImMKHal3DsEQ_AUIESgB

Household dust mites:

http://www.google.com/search?q=dust+mite+images&newwindow=1&client=tablet-android-verizon&prmd=isnv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG6sac8uzXAhUX_mMKHVsxCW0Q_AUIESgB&biw=962&bih=601#imgrc=cdo34jaTgDfxnM:

https://www.google.com/search?q=dust+mite+images&newwindow=1&client=tablet-android-verizon&prmd=isnv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG6sac8uzXAhUX_mMKHVsxCW0Q_AUIESgB&biw=962&bih=601#imgrc=cdo34jaTgDfxnM:

Tardigrades also contribute to the kinds of seasonal dust that cause rhinitis.

Meanwhile, as to how I know.

1. Conditions officially diagnosed by qualified immunologist.

2. Signs and symptoms, including gagging, choking, retching, vomiting, coughing, sneezing and wheezing distinctive and aggravated enough that people witnessing an allergy attack of the type invariably approach, often with cell phone in hand, asking if I need help.

Signs and symptoms controllable before or after the fact of exposure with 1 or 2 primatene tablets, on which, I go though about 30 tablets a year.

I am so sorry!

I've heard of dust mites. I'm careful not to dust, as this would stir them up. I didn't know anything about tardigrades. What I know now seems contradictory, though. Tardigrades need a lot of water in order to be nondormant, yet you live in a desert, ITIWBS.

Dust mites eat human skin and hair. I can see how they might find enough to eat in a house. But tardigrades eat mnoss and algae. Where in a desert woujld they find that?

Or are you also allergic to the dormant form? Is that how your allergies work? I'm very new to this, so if I'm asking silly questions, they aren't silly to me. I just don't know.

Hi Guys, I’m back, after. Long spell away

I recently bought a Dyson Stick hoover, and used it to hoover my bed mattress, which I do eveey week.

I was just amazed at how much “white dust” I saw in the hoover bin when I finished, you couldn’t see that in my old hoover?

That’s just after a week! Imagine how much would build up if I never hoovered it so often?

Smudger.

Tardigrades are as fundmental to understanding arthropods as shrews are to understanding all the other mammals.

In the begining there were tardigrades.

All the other arthropods follow.

In the begining there were shrews.

All other mammals are descended from shrews.




The basic tardigrade life cycle is: 1. Egg, 2. Egg hatches into four legged form, 3. Four legged form metamophoses into six legged form, 4. Six legged form metamorphoses into eight legged form, 5. Sexually mature eight legged form lays more eggs.

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

Mites go through an additional metamorphic stage in which they pack on a chitinous pellicle before sexually maturing into primitive arachnids.




With the ones I am allergic to, its any and every part of the little bug-bear, irrespective of its stage of life cycle or state of dormancy.




Living in the desert makes no especial difference.




The parasitic tardigrades and mites get all the water they need from their hosts.

Well done they are brilliant bits of kit Smudger.
I wish they supplied a second battery though but otherwise very happy with it.
Got ours just after they came out and cat fluff in the house is no bother.

Must try it on the beds good idea thanks

"The parasitic tardigrades and mites get all the water they need from their hosts." [ITIWBS]

Well, best of luck to you in dealing with them.

Well if you do, don’t use that small turbo brush, that came with you’re Dyson, it tore the cover of my mattress topper to shreads.

According to a TV documentary I saw recently, the white dust is made up of them micro bugs, or their eggs?

It’s scary when you see just how much the hoover picks up

Smudger.

Oooh, scary !

Are hotel beds scarier then

Quite a lot have become in recent years, yes. And not only beds in the cheap hotels. Even big posh hotels have had to close rooms, suites and even entire wings because of bed bugs

I brought some home from Spain (or was it Germany?) and had to call pest control. Cost me a fortune but luckily was effective.

My daughter is a veritable magnet. She was attacked several places on . South America was no surprise - but Iceland?

You might want to grow some kidney beans, then. Sprinkle some bean leaves on the floor, and they'll trap the bed bugs. Then you can take the leaves and destroy them, bugs and all.

http://asknature.org/strategy/leaf-surface-traps-bed-bugs/#.Wia5AEqnG1s

Well, I never knew that, it’s not just the bed bugs that are the problem, it’s them little microscopic ones, that live on our dead skin, that we shed when we’re in bed?

That’s what’s in the white dust I see when I hoover the mattress cover?

Smudger.

On my third mince pie, and second sherry........ can't wait till the in-laws bugger off