In what at first looks like a serious attempt to burn money, NASA has shot a bunch of microscopic worms up into space on the latest space shuttle mission:
In actual fact, these worms represent a seriously cool bit of science, that shows remarkable foresight on NASA’s part.
The Telegraph reports:
The worms were on board when the Space Shuttle Atlantis was launched from Cape Canaveral on Monday
The unexpected astronauts will help experts in human physiology at the University of Nottingham understand more about what triggers the body to build and lose muscle.
The worms are bound for the Japanese Experiment Module ”Kibo” on the International Space Station (ISS) where they will experience the same weightless conditions which can cause dramatic muscle loss in astronauts.
The Kibo lab makes use of the weightless conditions in orbit for the study of biomedicine and material sciences.
The worms are used by Dr Nathaniel Szewczyk, from the university’s Institute of Clinical Research in Derby, to study the signals that control muscle protein degradation.
He uses the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), because they are the perfect substitute for studying long term changes in human physiology – suffering from muscle loss under many of the same conditions that people do.
Muscle loss, or muscle atrophy, is one of the major health concerns for astronauts.
But this has much bigger implications than just stopping astronauts from getting sick. The idea is that this research will help to improve treatments for the bedridden and sufferers of degenerate muscle diseases. That’s right now. In the future, this kind of research could lead to a way to prolong human life, or to keep us healthy while we mission across the stars.
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty excited about the worms right now.
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Norman Conquest
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