What do you think of this fact?
Some living things handle heat, others handle cold. And then there’s Deinococcus radiodurans, a bacterium so unbothered by radiation that it got a nickname after a fantasy barbarian: Conan the Bacterium.
Found in a can of meat
The story starts in the 1950s. Researchers were blasting canned meat with radiation to kill every germ inside. Nothing should have survived. One bacterium apparently didn’t get the memo and simply survived.
Ever since, Conan has been a research favorite. Radiation dose is measured in a unit called the gray. Earlier studies showed the bacterium could survive 25,000 grays. Now we know: dried and frozen, it can take 140,000 grays. That’s about 28,000 times the dose that would be lethal to a human.
The secret: a three-part team
So why can Conan take so much? Radiation creates aggressive molecules inside cells that tear things apart. The bacterium has a built-in shield against them.
A team led by chemist Brian Hoffman of Northwestern University and Michael Daly of the Uniformed Services University described it in 2024 in the journal PNAS. The trick is an antioxidant called MDP, made of three ingredients:
- manganese ions
- phosphate
- a small peptide, which is a short chain of amino acids
Each piece helps a little on its own. Together they form a complex that works way better. As Hoffman puts it, something new forms when you put the pieces together, and it beats each one alone.
The researchers hope tailor-made antioxidants like this could one day help shield astronauts from radiation on long trips into deep space.
A survivor with style
It also matters for the search for life beyond Earth. If a bacterium from our planet can handle doses like these, it shows just how far the limits of what life can endure can stretch.
Conan, of course, doesn’t care about any of this. It just sits there and survives what would have flattened anything else. The barbarian would be proud.