Germs From Space

Does this sound familiar? Germs from space, more powerful than what we have here on Earth, come to earth and attack all of mankind. Sounds like your typical bad (or good, depending on your point of view) 1950’s sci-fi movie. I’ve seen my share of those in my time. The space shuttle mission STS-115 that launched back in September 2006 came back with their own mini bad B-movie. An experiment onboard provided evidence that germs really do get stronger outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. A package of Salmonella was taken onboard, carefully protected, to monitor the change in the germs in zero gravity. Turns out the little guys do alter their DNA to adapt to the change in environment so they can survive. The germs were fed to mice back home and the mice were more likely to get sick and died faster than the control set who were fed the germs that had stayed on the ground. This is a handy thing to know for the future of space travel since anywhere humans go, germs go. If humans are to spend a long time in zero gravity we must learn how our invisible little counterparts will react as well. It also will come in handy here on Earth to better understand how germs change, and how to treat the resulting infections. It’s interesting to note that despite all the accomplishments that humans have done and the distances we have traveled, it’s the littlest life forms that still have the biggest impact on us.