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On Monday, NASA officially opened an application window for the next generation of American astronauts it hopes to send to the International Space Station, lunar orbit and eventually to Mars. But to find the best candidates for dealing with the harsh levels of radiation in space and on the Red Planet, the agency may want to consider looking beyond the borders of the United States for applicants.
[...] For years now, scientists have been studying residents of Ramsar, a town in northern Iran that is believed to have the highest levels of naturally occurring background radiation for an inhabited area. Levels up to 80 times the world average (PDF) have been measured in town, yet studies of the few thousand people living in the area show rates of lung cancer are actually below average. In fact, research shows that a gene responsible for the production of white blood cells and so-called "natural killer cells" that attack tumors was more strongly expressed among the population.
[...] there may be no need to engage in controversial "editing" of human genetics to create radiation-resistant astronauts because there might already be good prospects in a few corners of the world.
[...] Besides Ramsar, the beaches near Guarapari, Brazil, also exhibit very high levels of natural radiation. People in Yangjiang, China, live with radiation levels three times the world average but have below-average cancer levels, and the story is the same in Karunagappally, India.
Unfortunately, none of the people from these areas would be eligible for the program NASA is now hiring for -- the agency is only looking for American applicants. So who in the United States might be best suited for withstanding the most cosmic radiation?
Paging residents of Hanford, WA...
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by TheLink on Thursday December 17 2015, @03:50AM
how about you idiots do everyone a favor and rail against "defense" spending so that we have some money for science.
Firstly that would be off topic.
Secondly it's not your defence spending I care about, so I don't rail against that. It's your offence spending I rail against. Sponsoring the ISIS and various rebels to destroy countries in the Middle East. Sponsoring other proxy wars (Afghanistan wasn't so bad till you bunch fucked it up, same goes for many other countries). By the way you bunch should dissolve (and prosecute) your CIA, they don't appear to have done a net good to the world or even the USA. They even encouraged the development of what some call "Modern Art"...
The US Gov and many US people like to call having aircraft carriers or military bases on the other side of the world "projecting power" as "defence". That's as much bullshit as saying it's home defence to have your sentry guns in other neighbourhoods.
And then they have the cheek to say the other countries are behaving aggressively when they object or make preparations to defend themselves.
With the US Gov playing World Police it's no surprise so many get killed.
You want to improve things? Don't waste your time calling me an idiot. Go convince the idiots in your country to vote differently. Too many of them are actually stupid enough to think voting is useless and armed revolution is a good idea. If they have difficulty using their votes to choose better leaders why would they do a better job using their guns to choose better leaders? When >98% of the voters keep voting for one of the Two Parties why should the Two Parties change?