Wednesday, September 26, 2007

KILLER MICROROBES FROM OUTER SPACE



Some girl sends us this somewhat worrying report on the behavior of germs in space. That also, as she puts it, “might be a corollary of some sort to the Peru asteroid story.” (See last Wednesday)
“Spaceflight is known to have profound effects on human physiology, weakening astronauts' bones and muscles and impairing their immune systems. A new study shows that its effects on microorganisms may be just as dramatic: Salmonella grown onboard the space shuttle was many times deadlier than its terrestrial counterparts. The study suggests that NASA and other space agencies may need to worry that long manned missions will increase the virulence of microorganisms that astronauts inevitably carry with them.” (The picture is not salmonella, but it looked threatening.) For more.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I bet this company < http://www.giantmicrobes.com/uk/ > specializing in cuddly toy microbes haven't got it together to produce a mutated space version of salmonella yet!

In the meantime here's salmonella < http://www.giantmicrobes.com/uk/products/salmonella.html >. A bit like a cockatoo don't you think?

Actually, Syphilis < http://www.giantmicrobes.com/uk/products/pox.html > looks quite cute too, although Giardia
< http://www.giantmicrobes.com/uk/products/giardia.html > looks a bit spooky!

Anonymous said...

Sydney, I thought I warned you about the dangers of frequenting those microrobes.

Anonymous said...

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm germs