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Bacteria Are New Focus of Space Research
Pay per view. Try going in through the author's Twitter feed. That might work. If not, try accessing the article via your friendly, local public library. Proquest citation:
http://search.proquest.com/nationalnewsexpanded/docview/1870422687/BAAB8D9AF4E14426PQ/1?accountid=xxxxx. The account number is specific to your library. See your librarian. The publication date is February 22, 2017. The article was in that day's paper. Sometimes the articles go online the day before they appear in print. This time, the dates are the same.
Bacteria Are New Focus of Space Research
Studies look at how microbes become more of a threat to humans as they get farther from Earth
By Robert Lee Hotz
Lee.Hotz@wsj.com
@leHotz <--- upper case/lower case mismatch. Not case-sensitive?
Feb. 21, 2017 8:00 a.m. ET
Researchers grappling with the effects of spaceflight on the human body are stepping up efforts to discover what makes microbes more tenacious in space, in hopes of keeping astronauts healthy during long voyages to asteroids or Mars. ... Aboard the international space station, scientists are finding bacteria that grow faster, mutate more readily, and become more infectious or more resistant to antibiotics than on Earth. Microbiologists also are finding that some space station astronauts in orbit experience subtle changes in the protective mix of microbes in their bodies, called the microbiome, that influence how well their immune system wards off infections.
"We see they are responding in ways that are completely unexpected," said microbiologist Cheryl Nickerson at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, who studies how bacteria behave in space. "What are bacteria going to do over a long duration as we get farther and farther from Earth?"
National Aeronautics and Space Administration researchers have studied bacteria in space since the 1960s, when U.S. scientists discovered that E.coli and salmonella grew twice as fast in orbit as on Earth. Soviet-era Russian researchers in the 1970s determined that infectious microbes like staphylococcus aboard their spacecraft had increased resistance to five common antibiotics. Not until 2006, though, did scientists led by Dr. Nickerson prove in tests with laboratory animals that some bacteria actually became more lethal while in orbit.
This month, NASA plans to begin tests of an antibiotic-resistant superbug called methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, also known as MRSA, in a controlled experiment aboard the space station. Later this year, NASA expects to launch a satellite to test how E. coli bacteria react to different doses of antibiotics in weightlessness.
Studies look at how microbes become more of a threat to humans as they get farther from Earth
By Robert Lee Hotz
Lee.Hotz@wsj.com
@leHotz <--- upper case/lower case mismatch. Not case-sensitive?
Feb. 21, 2017 8:00 a.m. ET
Researchers grappling with the effects of spaceflight on the human body are stepping up efforts to discover what makes microbes more tenacious in space, in hopes of keeping astronauts healthy during long voyages to asteroids or Mars. ... Aboard the international space station, scientists are finding bacteria that grow faster, mutate more readily, and become more infectious or more resistant to antibiotics than on Earth. Microbiologists also are finding that some space station astronauts in orbit experience subtle changes in the protective mix of microbes in their bodies, called the microbiome, that influence how well their immune system wards off infections.
"We see they are responding in ways that are completely unexpected," said microbiologist Cheryl Nickerson at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, who studies how bacteria behave in space. "What are bacteria going to do over a long duration as we get farther and farther from Earth?"
National Aeronautics and Space Administration researchers have studied bacteria in space since the 1960s, when U.S. scientists discovered that E.coli and salmonella grew twice as fast in orbit as on Earth. Soviet-era Russian researchers in the 1970s determined that infectious microbes like staphylococcus aboard their spacecraft had increased resistance to five common antibiotics. Not until 2006, though, did scientists led by Dr. Nickerson prove in tests with laboratory animals that some bacteria actually became more lethal while in orbit.
This month, NASA plans to begin tests of an antibiotic-resistant superbug called methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, also known as MRSA, in a controlled experiment aboard the space station. Later this year, NASA expects to launch a satellite to test how E. coli bacteria react to different doses of antibiotics in weightlessness.
