Worms may help people reach the stars
Source: Agencies |
December 1, 2011, Thursday
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BRITISH scientists believe microscopic worms that are biologically similar to humans may hold the key to helping people colonize planets such as Mars by giving clues on coping with long-term living in space.
A team led by Nathaniel Szew-czyk of Notthingham University put 4,000 of the worms - Caenorhabditis elegans - aboard the space shuttle Discovery and studied their progress.
Many experts - including astrophysicist Stephen Hawking - believe the ultimate survival of humanity could depend on colonizing other planets.
Szewczyk said: "While this sounds like science fiction, it is a fact that if mankind wants to avoid the natural order of extinction then we need to find ways to live on other planets."
But there are major challenges associated with long-term space living, including high levels of radiation and rapid loss of bone strength.
Interface, a journal of the Royal Society, reported that Szew-czyk's team found their worms developed from egg to adulthood and produced offspring in space just as they do on earth. This makes them an ideal and cost-effective experimental way to study the effects of long-term and long-distance space exploration in humans, they said.
The researchers successfully monitored the effect of low Earth orbit on 12 generations of the worm during the first three months of a six-month stop at the International Space Station.
"While it may seem surprising, many of the biological changes that happen during spaceflight affect astronauts and worms in the same way," Szewczyk said.
"We have been able to show that worms can grow and reproduce in space for long enough to reach another planet and that we can remotely monitor their health."
C elegans was the first multi-cellular organism to have its genetic structure mapped completely, and many of its 20,000 genes have the same functions as those in humans, Szewczyk's team said. Around 2,000 of these genes play a role in promoting muscle function and 50 to 60 percent of these have obvious human counterparts, they said.
C elegans has long been used by scientists to help further the understanding of human biology, so now Szewczyk thinks it could help researchers investigate living on Mars.
His team worked with experts at the US universities of Pittsburgh and Colorado and Canada's Simon Fraser University to develop a compact automated C elegans culturing system that could be monitored remotely for the effects of environmental toxins and in-flight radiation.
A team led by Nathaniel Szew-czyk of Notthingham University put 4,000 of the worms - Caenorhabditis elegans - aboard the space shuttle Discovery and studied their progress.
Many experts - including astrophysicist Stephen Hawking - believe the ultimate survival of humanity could depend on colonizing other planets.
Szewczyk said: "While this sounds like science fiction, it is a fact that if mankind wants to avoid the natural order of extinction then we need to find ways to live on other planets."
But there are major challenges associated with long-term space living, including high levels of radiation and rapid loss of bone strength.
Interface, a journal of the Royal Society, reported that Szew-czyk's team found their worms developed from egg to adulthood and produced offspring in space just as they do on earth. This makes them an ideal and cost-effective experimental way to study the effects of long-term and long-distance space exploration in humans, they said.
The researchers successfully monitored the effect of low Earth orbit on 12 generations of the worm during the first three months of a six-month stop at the International Space Station.
"While it may seem surprising, many of the biological changes that happen during spaceflight affect astronauts and worms in the same way," Szewczyk said.
"We have been able to show that worms can grow and reproduce in space for long enough to reach another planet and that we can remotely monitor their health."
C elegans was the first multi-cellular organism to have its genetic structure mapped completely, and many of its 20,000 genes have the same functions as those in humans, Szewczyk's team said. Around 2,000 of these genes play a role in promoting muscle function and 50 to 60 percent of these have obvious human counterparts, they said.
C elegans has long been used by scientists to help further the understanding of human biology, so now Szewczyk thinks it could help researchers investigate living on Mars.
His team worked with experts at the US universities of Pittsburgh and Colorado and Canada's Simon Fraser University to develop a compact automated C elegans culturing system that could be monitored remotely for the effects of environmental toxins and in-flight radiation.
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