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From Popular Mechanics
On the next International Space Station replenishment mission, the Space X Dragon will bring coffee, a robot, and a group of rodent passengers to help scientists understand biology in the world. ;space. Laboratory mice will help researchers study how weightlessness affects biological processes such as circadian rhythms and microbiomes. "Since the journey to Mars and the return is expected to take several years, we need to determine how the intestinal microbiota could be altered in weightlessness over long periods of time," said Fred Turek, director of the Northwestern Circadian Sleep and Biology Center [19659003]. The Space Mouse Team consists of 10 identical siblings from two different mouse families. Half of them will spend 90 days in orbit, while the other half will live in a NASA simulator that will "replace the exact conditions minute by minute – but with gravity – inside of the space station ". microbiome – billions of bacteria and other microorganisms that live in the intestines – in the space, and how circadian rhythms, which regulate our sleep and activity patterns, could play a role.
"It's important to understand," says Martha Vitaterna, co-investigator of the study. "The take-off effort, the absence of gravity and the confined life setting add to the stress of life in the space, and the key to adaptation can be in the body's ability to maintain harmony between systems. "
analogous to the human twin project "Year in Space" conducted in 2015-2016, in which scientists compared the data of the year of astronaut Scott Kelly with his identical twin brother based on land, Mark. Research on mice, combined with results from the study of twins, will help scientists understand what weightlessness will do for our body, and perhaps even help improve human health on Earth.
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