Last Christmas I was the recipient of a fun interactive gift – Sea Monkeys on Mars
. I was a little dubious about them, as I know they are actually brine shrimp, and when I was a kid this fact was a major disappointment to me. I was the child at school who busted up the myth of the sea monkey. Not only did they not look like the advertisements, but they were actually a form of fish food! I have always been overly literal, and the discrepancy between the sales pitch of the sea monkeys and the actuality soured me on them. I decided as an adult to give them another shot and relax my literal standards a bit and see if maybe I could just sit back and enjoy what they did have to offer. Guess what? They were totally fun and interesting and when the last of them recently passed away I was dismayed to see my little terrarium empty. The idea of their ability to enter into suspended animation (called cryptobiosis) is nothing short of amazing.
