How do tardigrades deal with extreme dehydration and what can it be used for?

There are special proteins in the cells of tardigrades that make the animals able to survive for a very long time even under extreme conditions. That is, for example, after losing almost all water from the body.

[Photo: Alexander Klepnev, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons]

Tardigrades are very small invertebrate animals about 1 mm long. They have the characteristic appearance of “blind bears”…