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posted by mrpg on Friday December 29 2017, @10:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the call-Rosie-Jetson dept.

Astronauts can now sequence microbes they find on the International Space Station (ISS) without having to send them back to Earth:

Being able to identify microbes in real time aboard the International Space Station, without having to send them back to Earth for identification first, would be revolutionary for the world of microbiology and space exploration. The Genes in Space-3 team turned that possibility into a reality this year, when it completed the first-ever sample-to-sequence process entirely aboard the space station. Results from their investigation were published in Scientific Reports [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-18364-0] [DX].

The ability to identify microbes in space could aid in the ability to diagnose and treat astronaut ailments in real time, as well as assisting in the identification of DNA-based life on other planets. It could also benefit other experiments aboard the orbiting laboratory. Identifying microbes involves isolating the DNA of samples, and then amplifying – or making many copies - of that DNA that can then be sequenced, or identified.

The investigation was broken into two parts: the collection of the microbial samples and amplification by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), then sequencing and identification of the microbes. NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson conducted the experiment aboard the orbiting laboratory, with NASA microbiologist and the project's Principal Investigator Sarah Wallace and her team watching and guiding her from Houston.

Now Russian cosmonauts can test their crazy ideas. At least, until the ISS gets split apart and deorbited.


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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday December 30 2017, @04:54PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 30 2017, @04:54PM (#615882) Journal

    I disagree that the possession of DNA is the crucial test. The crucial test, it seems to me, is the mapping between DNA triplets and amino acids. This appears to be essentially random, where there are plausible reasons to believe that DNA components may have existed at the time the Earth was formed. Some of them have been spectroscopically detected in clouds of dust out in space. But there seems to be no particular reason that any one DNA triplet should be associated with any particular one amino acid. That's down to the detailed structure of the Ribosome.

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