Watch the ISS mice turn into athletes in microgravity

NASA scientists have published the first comprehensive study of the behavior of mice in microgravity – and prove to be small adaptable critters.

Seven to 10 days after the launch, the youngest mice participating in the ISS experiments have begun to behave in a remarkable and extremely GIF-worthy manner, which their brothers on the Earth do not seem to resemble: group circles that look like tracks .

Scientists do not know exactly why the mouse have begun to become more physically active than their rooted counterparts, but say that this could be their way of stimulating the body's balance system, which is generally absent in microgravity.

Although further research is needed to better understand behavior, stress is probably the cause, according to scientists, because space mice were healthy and normally behaved otherwise than by their repeated tricks. For example, they groomed their fur and huddled with other mice by anchoring to the wall of their habitat with their hind legs or tail and stretching their bodies.

Mice and humans share some biological similarities. We therefore hope that the experiments conducted in NASA's rodent rodent system will better understand the effect of microgravity when we consider larger missions to the moon and Mars.

"The behavior is a remarkable representation of the biology of the entire organism," said April Ronca, a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center and lead author of the paper, published online in the journal Scientific Reports, in a statement. "It informs us about overall health and brain function."

The Novartis biomedical research institutes and the non-profit Center for the Advancement of Science in Space collaborated with NASA in the study, which examined weightless mice over a period of time. 37 days.

The rodent equipment system will be used in future research on rodents, but unlike other studies on the effects of weightlessness these subjects do not enjoy any benefits such as big screen TVs.