Latest Nathaniel Szewczyk Stories

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Scientists have reported in the journal Scientific Reports that spaceflight could help a microscopic worm live longer. The international group of scientists were studying the loss of bone and muscle mass experienced by astronauts when they found that spaceflight suppressed accumulation of toxic proteins that normally accumulate within aging muscle. “We identified seven genes, which were down-regulated in space and whose...

Microscopic worms similar in biological makeup to human beings have returned from a successful space mission, proving for the first time that worms can survive in space. Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), a worm family that originated in a rubbish dump in Bristol, England, were sent into space to give researchers a better understanding of how humans can survive in space -- if ever comes the time when we have to flee our planet and start anew elsewhere in the heavens. University of...