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from the the-final-frontier-is-dangerous dept.
Cristoforetti, of the European Space Agency (ESA), was scanned prior to her trip to the International Space Station (ISS) in November 2014. When Cristoforetti landed back on Earth on June 11 this year, her 199-day mission meant she became a new record-holder for the single longest spaceflight by a woman, eclipsing NASA's Sunita William's 195-day flight in 2006-2007. Cristoforetti's skin cells were subsequently re-scanned by Koenig, who explained how on the ISS skin physiology is different, leading to some surprising results.
"So far we've got interesting results from three astronauts. It seems that there is a strong production of collagen; so suddenly these astronauts have more collagen. It means there is some sort of anti-ageing effect, at least in the dermis - the lower part of the skin. And we found that the epidermis, in particular the part of the living cells, that this epidermis is shrinking, so the skin gets thinner," Koenig said.
Bone de-calcification? Check. Cancer from space radiation? Check. Thinner skin? Check. Perhaps we ought to go with exploration via telepresence robots for the time being?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gnuman on Wednesday July 22 2015, @02:18PM
Bone de-calcification? Check. Cancer from space radiation? Check. Thinner skin? Check. Perhaps we ought to go with exploration via telepresence robots for the time being?
1. bone decalcification is not an issue - it's somewhat understood process these days and not a large problem. Larger problem are hardening arteries.
2. "cancer from space radiation"? - citation needed? It is known that cosmic radiation is causing other serious problems (brain fog being one), but cancer is kind of not it.
3. it says in the summary "anti-ageing effect in the dermis" - seems like a positive?
4. you forgot about degeneration of optic nerve possibly due to pressure on it in 0g.
If you want to explore places, and move off this planet at some point, you need to send people there and deal with the hazards and dangers. If all you want is a weather station, then by all means, robots for you.
If that is how people behaved, we would probably be extinct right now, never have left Africa. Instead, people faced the "impossible" odds and settled this entire planet without more technology than a spear and know-how to use animal skins to build a boat. Life everywhere needs to spread to survive. If we aren't willing to leave this planet because of a few hazards, then we are already extinct.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2015, @04:32PM
It is well known and confirmed by sufficiently many studies that any type of ionizing radiation can cause cancer. It is also well known and experimentally confirmed that cosmic radiation is ionizing radiation. Therefore you don't need extra research to deduce that cosmic radiation can cause cancer, just like you don't need extra research to figure out that eating rat poison in China is just as deadly as eating rat poison in America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2015, @05:07PM
I am 99.99% certain there is no study that distinguishes between the radiation *causing* cancer vs. speeding up the growth of tumors vs. improving the survival odds of cancer cells (eg reduced immune surveillance). I base that on nothing specific to radiation, just that the people studying it don't seem concerned with actually figuring out whats going on.
And the difference DOES matter. For example, if the "carcinogen" only speeds the growth that means we can select people to go into "carcinogenic" situations that will not be affected.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday July 22 2015, @09:29PM
I am a crackpot