Bacteria sent to space come back more infectious
Bacteria sent to space come back more infectious
Sep 24 07:09 PM US/Eastern
Source
Microbes that cause salmonella came back from spaceflight even more virulent and dangerous in an experiment aboard the US space shuttle Atlantis, according to a study published on Monday.
The experiment by microbiologists at Arizona State University sent tubes with salmonella bacteria on a shuttle flight in September 2006 to measure how space flight might affect disease-causing microbes.
The salmonella sample that travelled millions of kilometers (miles) in orbit changed their pattern of certain genes compared to identical bacteria back on Earth, said the study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Following the shuttle flight, studies using mice showed the salmonella bacteria aboard the shuttle were “almost three times as likely to cause disease when compared with control bacteria grown on the ground,” said a university statement outlining the study.
After about three weeks, 40 percent of mice fed the salmonella from Earth were still alive while only 10 percent of those given the bacteria from space survived, according to the study.
The professors who carried out the research, Cheryl Nickerson and lead author James Wilson, said the results of the research could help advance understanding of salmonella and other infectious diseases — in space and on Earth — possibly paving the way for development of new treatments.
Salmonella and other related bacterial pathogens are a leading cause of food-borne illness and infectious disease, particularly in developing countries. No vaccine exists for salmonella and it has become increasingly resistant to antibiotic treatment, the study said.
The research revealed the key role of a regulatory protein, Hfq, which could be responsible for the enhanced virulence of the microbes after space flight, the authors said. The finding could shed light on how cells act on Earth.
The study also examined the morphology of the bacteria during space flight and found changes that indicate the formation of a biofilm, which was not observed in the samples grown on Earth. Biofilms are associated with increased virulence of bacteria.
The scientists plan to carry out more experiments on the same theme possibly on space shuttle flights in 2008.
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Andromeda Strain, anyone?
Speaking of Andromeda Strain, do you guys remember the “meteorite” that crashed in Peru a few weeks ago and all the people in the area got sick with an unknown illness? Well, the Russian media has a different story to tell. They say it was an American spy satellite that was destroyed in its orbit. The people were getting sick from the plutonium which powered the satellite.
Now that just sounds a little more credible than the story our media fed us. They say “arsenic fumes” made the people sick: “The meteorite created the gases when the object’s hot surface met an underground water supply tainted with arsenic, the scientists said.”
The incredible ignorance of that statement still leaves me speechless.
Another little update:
I thought their stupidity couldn’t get much worse. I was wrong.
An article titled “‘Meteorite’ Crash Breeds Mass Hysteria” by Andrea Thompson theorizes the illness was caused by panic. Not only that, but she also does a little “summary” of Andromeda Strain, stating that in the book, a “mysterious rock fell from space” and made everybody sick. This was just too good not to screen capture. Apparently, she and/or her editor never bothered to even read the summary at the back of the book or look anything up. The object that fell from the sky in Andromeda strain wasn’t a rock or a meteor, it was a satellite. Are they really that dumb?? Or do they think we are that dumb? Maybe it’s both…
If you click on the photo, it will take you to the article, that is if it hasn’t been deleted or changed yet. That’s why I took the screen shot. I guess the article was posted on Space.com, but the link that took you to the original post was dead. Go figure.
reflux1 said,
September 26, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Awesome! I have been thirsty waiting for more information on that peruvian meteor, and you come in the clutch with the answers…. either way it is interesting. I was reading some article yesterday that was talking about how china has the power to shut down chinese-manufactured computer chips on a whim, i wonder if the chinese shut that down, or whoever took it out..