The International Space Station May Need More Microbes to Keep Astronauts Healthy

International space station requires more microbes to keep astronauts healthy

By Allison Parshall Edited Lee bills

Almost quarterly, humans are constantly occupied what we think is the most isolated habitat: International Space Stationor ISS. Located in the vacuum of low-ground orbit, about 270 people and have been varied Animal guests-Plus microbes that went to space in the bodies of residents.

There these invited microbial guests have evolved. Bacteria Adapt to cosmic radiation With new ways to resolve DNA. Some become Resistant to antibiotics and develop other changes that can cause sterilized agents or diseases.

“To care for us humans, we need to take care of our human microbes. And that will be a very interesting challenge.” -Martin blaser, microbiologist

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“This is a very extreme environment,” says Rodolfo Salido, a bioingine of the University of California, San Diego. And the microbes that live can be affected by astronaut health. To Map of space station microbial worldSalid and his colleagues sent Swabs to space, where the astronauts had hundreds of surfaces sampled. As a result Three-dimensional map of ISS microbial diversityPublished Thursday in the magazine Cell, It shows that this orbital habitat is missing many types of bacterial life that humans usually find and it can be important for our well-being. To be healthy in the long term Outside the corner of the worldResearchers suggest, maybe we need a little more support for friends from our friend microbial.

“We need to take care of human microbes for us. And that will be a very interesting challenge” in space travel, Martin Blaser said that he did not participate in new research.

In December 2020 Salid and his colleagues collaborated in the NASA jet propulsion laboratory to market about 1,000 sterilized devices for ISS. The group again designed to work in space: Salido learned a lot from a visit to Houston Iss replica, where Michael Barratt stated that the normal sampling of researchers were very large and flammable.

Rounded Swabs arrived at the Microbiologists of Iss, Astronauts and Kathleen and other crew, 24 hours passed surface surface surfaces. They took 803 swabs, which returned to the ground in October 2021. Researchers analyzed samples to identify genes and chemicals (and therefore the types of microbial species presented). Most bacteria of Issums were those who lived in our skin, such as species Staphylococcus. It is important that there was little bacteria that we usually find in the ground and water in the land.

In many ways, this situation “is like any buildings you have ever been,” says Blaker. “We’re removing microbials all the time,” there are more of them in buildings with low air flow than your backyard microbes. Some internal environments have been microbed than others. At Previous Research Blaser and his colleagues sampled in rural and urban houses sampled by south American locations from a small town in South America Manaus, from the Brazilian metropolis metropolis. They found that our living spaces are more isolated from the natural environment, which also depletes the microbes that are usually in these places.

But ISS is not a typical location. In new research, researchers compare their samples from the spaces taken from the South American house, as well as additional samples obtained from other Earth environments, such as hospitals. Iss found that he was at the extreme end of microbial diversity. A particular comparison was highlighted with Haoqi Nina Zhao on the UC San Diego and the research author: “ISS) (ISS) on the ground.

This micromatic habitat can affect how much an astronaut is an affair on health. Researchers assemblerize that astronauts experience sometimes experienced eruptions and immunity dysfunction. As you enter More artificial environmentsIn the ground or in space, “we are breaking our relationship … with the exposures of the microbes we have evolved,” says Salido. “And our immunological systems don’t (still) why to deal.”

While some evidence links low microbial diversity Some types of Immunological system DysfunctionTherefore, such studies usually develop microbials under childhood and microbial, they do not have healthy astronauts that are not a healthy astronaut that is temporarily inhabited in space, as Blaker says. That would change, however, if our species were established for long-term settlements.

“I would like to know that: How do these baby microbes evolve in this situation?” Blaker says. “That’s going to be very important if we will colonize the future of man’s future.”

In this spatial future, we should take some old microbial microbes with us, while they are fed still while they control less microorganisms. Instead of chemical disinfectants, those who can guide antimicrobial resistance, the authors may suggest that future research can be based on probiotic sanitation, which presents harmful bacteria, which are potentially harmful.

And even though some internal environments may have important microbes, the answer is not to prevent basic hygiene measures. “It’s not hygienic,” says Salido. Going forward, built environments is “developing ways of microbial syllabbies or microbial friends.”