EurekAlert -- Scientists at Harvard University have found that a common class of freshwater invertebrate animals called bdelloid rotifers are extraordinarily resistant to ionizing radiation, surviving and continuing to reproduce after doses of gamma radiation much greater than that tolerated by any other animal species studied to date. Because free radicals such as those generated by radiation have been implicated in inflammation, cancer, and aging in higher organisms, the findings -- published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Harvard’s Matthew Meselson and graduate student Eugene Gladyshev -- could stimulate new lines of research into these medically important problems.
