Does this sound like the Andromeda Strain or what? "Deadly germs come back on a research space craft" Perfect B-movie plot , huh? What's even scarier is , it really happened. In a medical experiment, salmonella carried about the space shuttle in the fall of 2006 proved far more lethal to lab mice than the exact same microbe here on Earth. Just how much more deadly? 90% dead vs. 60% dead in twenty-six days. And that was with far less of the microbe in the oral dose. Apparently 167 genes in the space-evolved strain had changed. The likely cause: In zero G the force of fluids passing over the cells is low, similar to conditions in the gastrointestinal tract, and the cells adapted quickly to the new environment.
thanks to slashdot.com for the original article
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