Would a thousand rads kill Conan the Bacterium? No. D. radiodurans shrugs it off. Two thousand rads? Ten thousand rads? Researches have found that D. radiodurans even survives a blistering assault of one point five million rads–radiation so intense it literally breaks DNA apart. Within a couple hours, D. radiodurans calmly stitches its genome back together again, no worse for wear. Indeed, a global nuclear war — heaven forbid — would end the life of most everything on the planet. But biologists speculate Conan the Bacterium would still be around afterward. Let’s hope no one ever runs that particular test.