Author: Jeremy Rehm / Source: Science News
For nearly a year, U.S. astronauts and identical twins Scott and Mark Kelly lived lives that were as separate as Earth and space — literally. While Mark enjoyed retirement in Tucson, his brother floated in microgravity aboard the International Space Station orbiting about 400 kilometers above the planet.
Ten science teams studied the twins’ physiology, memory abilities and genes before, during and after that year, looking for any deviations that might suggest Scott’s 340 days in space affected him physically. While researchers have dropped tantalizing hints about what NASA’s Twins Study found, now a comprehensive study published in the April 12 Science confirms that lengthy space travel triggers stressors that can manipulate genes, send the immune system into overdrive or impair mental reasoning abilities and memory. Whether these stressors have long-term health repercussions is still unclear.
This is “the most comprehensive view that we’ve ever had of the response of the human body to spaceflight,” says Susan Bailey, a radiation cancer biologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins who led one of the research teams.
MIND-BENDING
Within the first few days after Scott entered space in March 2015, he took blood samples that were sent back to Earth. Tests revealed epigenetic tags on more than 1,000 of his genes that weren’t in his preflight samples or samples from Mark. These chemical markers, which can turn a gene on or off when added or removed, can be caused by environmental factors and are reversible. Most affected were genes regulating the repair of DNA and the length of telomeres, the tips of chromosomes, Bailey’s team found.
Measurements of Scott’s telomeres showed that they had surprisingly grown 14.5 percent longer. The team had expected to find his telomeres shortened amid the low-gravity and radiation-bathed environment of space….
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