Travelling
into the space is dangerous for a lot of very obvious reasons — traveling off
of Earth on a rocket has its risks, after all — but even when everything
according to the plan well it seems that a brief stay in space has the potential
to alter a person’s very DNA.
That’s the
takeaway from a long-term NASA study that used astronaut Scott Kelly and his
twin brother Mark as guinea pigs to see how living in space can affect the most
basic building blocks of life.
Scott Kelly
has spent over 500 days in space overall, but a huge chunk of that came with a
single mission which had him stay aboard the International Space Station for
342 days. His brother Mark, who is a retired astronaut, is his identical twin
and has the same DNA.
This provided
a never-before-possible opportunity for NASA to study how long-term space
travel affects the human body and the genes that make us who we are. As it
turns out, space really does change us, and upon Scott’s return to Earth it was
discovered that his DNA has significantly changed.
“Scott’s
telomeres (endcaps of chromosomes that shorten as one ages) actually became
significantly longer in space,” NASA explains. “While this finding was
presented in 2017, the team verified this unexpected change with multiple
assays and genomics testing. Additionally, a new finding is that the majority
of those telomeres shortened within two days of Scott’s return to Earth.”
Read more
here.
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