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posted by martyb on Thursday May 28 2020, @05:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the pigs^W-bacteria-in-spaaace! dept.

Terrestrial bacteria can grow on nutrients from space:

In the past decade, there has been renewed thinking about human missions to the moon and perhaps even to Mars. Inevitably, terrestrial microorganisms on the bodies of astronauts, spaceships or equipment will come into contact with extraterrestrial environments. Researchers from the Radboudumc describe in an article in Astrobiology that bacteria can survive on an "extraterrestrial diet," which affected their pathogenic potential

[...] For this study, four non-fastidious environment-derived bacterial species with pathogenic features were selected, including Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. To determine whether extraterrestrial survival and growth were possible, the researchers developed a minimal bacterial diet based on nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, iron and water to which carbohydrates found in carbonaceous meteorites were added. The four bacterial species were shown to survive and multiply on this minimal diet.

Journal Reference:
Jorge Domínguez-Andrés et al. Growth on Carbohydrates from Carbonaceous Meteorites Alters the Immunogenicity of Environment-Derived Bacterial Pathogens, Astrobiology (DOI: 10.1089/ast.2019.2173)

The guide to being a hitchhiker in the galaxy says to be a bacterium.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @08:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @08:05AM (#1000086)

    Well that's fucking rich, coming from the likes of you.