Microgravity Can Permanently Mutate Bacteria And Make Them Faster Breeders
Microgravity Can Permanently Mutate Bacteria And Make Them Faster Breeders
https://www.sciencealert.com/microgravity-can-permanently-mutate-bacteria-and-make-them-faster-breeders
Certain types of bacteria can mutate to reproduce more quickly when exposed to microgravity, and that's not great news for our space tourist dreams, seeing as we humans are teeming with bacteria.
I'm not a biologist. The only context I have regarding rapid cellular reproduction in space is the 2017 movie "Life" where a fictional alien implies doom for humanity and all of Earth as we know it.
Are there any positives to this news? My understanding is that multi-celled organisms have a hard time repairing themselves in microgravity; bones in particular being affected among other processes. Hoping the research being conducted here helps advance medicine on that front.
I can only imagine what having the runs is like in space. Super powered E. coli coursing through your gut sounds extra....you know 💩
Could potentially be used to create better strains of "good bacteria" such as the extremely important ones that make up the human gut microbiome. I could see it maybe being useful for the development of antibiotics and vaccines too!