Tardigrades have perfected an extreme form of hibernation called an anhydrobiotic state, meaning roughly that they can expel all of the water from their cells and go into a state of suspended animation. They usually only live for about a month when left in an active state, but once they dry themselves out, they can survive the harshest conditions the world can throw at them for decades on end.

Evolving to live through cold and drought makes sense — these types of conditions occur all the time on Earth. But extreme radiation? Vacuum? Some scientists believe these traits are just a byproduct of their hibernation, but in truth it remains a mystery.

Are tardigrades aliens from a distant world who came to Earth on an asteroid? Probably not — they're genetically related to the well known worm c. elegans. But last fall, the European Space Agency sent the little guys into orbit as part of the BioPan-6 mission to see how well they'd do floating above their homeworld, exposed to outer space. We're still waiting on the results of those experiments, which hopefully will shed light on why these mysterious little creatures evolved to become the toughest life on the planet.

Photo: Brett's Blog

This film may just be too gosh-darn cute for its own good, but dammit, we want to see it. We even already want to buy a working remote control Wall-E unit for our office, just so we can make it emote to every inanimate object in the place. Not to mention the R2D2/Wall-E battles we could have.