Roger Moroney: The simplest of creatures will see us off

Roger Moroney. Photo / FIle

The more complex something is the more can go wrong with it.

So it stands to reason (if 'reason' is a word which can honestly be attributed to the things I write) that by keeping things simple you keep them free from breaking.

How many hand-held calculators built 30 years will still be running in 2987?

How many Chinese-made abacus things built a thousand years ago are still working?

The latter, I daresay, will very easily outnumber the former.

I remember one of my old teachers once telling me to "keep it simple" when I was trying to explain something complicated.

And it worked.

"Yes I did throw that chair out the window sir."

The more you put into something the more potential there is for something to go wrong.

That's why there's only 15 aside in rugby because if the teams had 103 players each it would be a shambles of errors, faults and complexity.

I remember there was a power outage a few years back and for about 20 minutes the central city went to sleep.

The Eftpos machines took a nap accordingly and while some of those stumbling about in the dimness of one store were happy to use cash to make a purchase they were turned away...the cash registers ran on electricity and they would not open.

This would not have happened in Arkwright's corner store I can assure you.

And of course the automatic doors and their "customer coming or going" sensors also snoozed away.

So people could not get in.

Nor could they get out.

Which in normal situations would be a huge boon to shop owners as they would have a captive audience of buyers...but then the Eftpos was out and the cash registers wouldn't work.

So people stood, zombie-like, by the doors waiting to leave.

Yep, the more complex, the more can go awry...I've always wanted to use the word 'awry' and this has given me that chance...but I digress.

I once replaced the manifold on our dear old Vauxhall Viva back around 1979 and a couple of years later my brother and I actually winched the old blown engine out and replaced it with one I picked up for a song at the wreckers.

It took about three hours and at least half of that was used up dealing to a flagon of ale because it was a very warm day.

Today I look into the engine bay of my Nissan and I can't recognise anything...except the spark plugs and heaven help me if I ever need to replace them.

I could get at three of them but the fourth would probably require the removal of half the plumbing and mysterious shrouding.

Where's the oil filter?

No idea.

Which brings me (somehow) to the "water bear"...the simplest yet toughest living thing on this planet.

How tough?

Well, it will outlive everything through everything and scientists and biology boffins say the only thing which would cause its extinction would be the death of the sun... in an estimated five billion years time.

And when that time comes what will evolution have done to it?

Nothing.

It will still look the way it looks today.

The "water bear" is a very simple but very strong little beast called a tardigrade and is barely 1mm long and has been around since day one, and it fascinates me.

Apparently there are about 900 species of them and they live everywhere in the world because conditions don't bother them.

They can tolerate temperatures as low as -457C and as high as 357C.

They can also take 5700 "grays" of radiation when about 15 would kill a human and most other animals.

They can live in a vacuum, so going into space would be no problem and they can live for a decade without needing a drink of water...which they can happily live in.

Salt or fresh, doesn't matter.

And they live on the land from deserts to glaciers.

Anywhere.

They can be boiled or frozen and still survive.

Scientists put some into a freezer 30 years ago and when they took them out recently they revived and just got on with doing, well, nothing.

So what's their place in the whole chain of things?

Nothing much really.

They just drift and wander for several hundred years and all the while new ones emerge, as they will for ever.

So then...what can we learn from the humble but hardy tardigrade which could assist us in finding a more negotiable path through time?

Nothing.

I love a simple answer.