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Live Worms Found in Columbia Wreckage
Scoria writes "CNN is reporting that hundreds of live worms, fourth or fifth generation descendents of the subjects of a scientific experiment conducted aboard Columbia, have been discovered amongst the shuttle wreckage. The worms,
C. elegans ,
share many biological characteristics with humans and are the size of a pencil tip."
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Hundreds of worms from a science experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia have been found alive in the wreckage, NASA said Wednesday.
The worms, known as C. elegans, were found in debris in Texas several weeks ago. Technicians sorting through the debris at Kennedy Space Center in Florida didn't open the containers of worms and dead moss cells until this week.
All seven astronauts were killed when the shuttle disintegrated over Texas on February 1. Columbia contained almost 60 scientific investigations.
"To my knowledge, these are the only live experiments that have been located and identified," said Bruce Buckingham, a NASA spokesman at the Kennedy Space Center.
The worms and moss were in the same nine-pound locker located in the mid-deck of the space shuttle. The worms were placed in six canisters, each holding eight petri dishes.
The worms, which are about the size of the tip of a pencil, were part of an experiment testing a new synthetic nutrient solution. The worms, which have a life cycle of between seven and 10 days, were four or five generations removed from the original worms placed on Columbia in January.
The C. elegans are primitive organisms that share many biological characteristics of humans. In 1999, C. elegans became the first multicellular organism to have the sequencing of its genome completed.
C. elegans have two sexes: males and hermaphrodites, which are females that produce sperm. A hermaphrodite worm can self-fertilize for the first 300 or so eggs but later usually prefers to accept sperm from males to produce a larger number of offspring.
The experiment was put together by researchers at the NASA Ames Research Center in California.
The moss, known as Ceratodon, was used to study how gravity affects cell organization. During Columbia's flight, shuttle commander Rick Husband sprayed the moss with a chemical that destroyed protein fiber. He also sprayed the moss with formaldehyde to preserve it. Seven of the eight aluminum canisters holding the moss were recovered.
Why worms?
The C. elegans are primitive organisms that share many biological characteristics of humans.
The experiment was put together by an Ames Research Center researcher and Dr. Fred Sack at Ohio State University.
"The cells were surprisingly well-preserved, but we're analyzing how useful it's going to be," Sack said.
NASA officials said they don't know if the worms will still have any scientific value since they were supposed to have been examined and unloaded from Columbia within hours of landing
"It's pretty astonishing to get the possibility of data after all that has happened," Sack said. "We never expected it. We expected a molten mass."
Go here for more info (genetic) and a pic of them
The C. Elegans genome may be browsed here...
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
C. elegans belongs to the phylum of nematodes.
Funnily, nematodes are called "sukkulamadot" in Finnish, which translates to "shuttle worms" in English.
Ok...
Would this also mean if you got infected with a weird viurus or "worm" you could sue?
Ok, you cannot be infected by C. elegans. They are not parasitic.
Think of how terrible it would have (or was) if they had biotoxins on board the shuttle?
Yeah, that would suck. Although it would probably either burn up upon re-entry or make it to earth safe in it's really good seal (as happened with these worms). Sure, once the box hit the ground it might break open...anyways
Does anyone know if these "similar to human" worms are harmful to humans?
Unless you were to swallow one and choke, these worms are not harmful to humans at all.
What makes them similar to humans anyway?
They share some genetic features. Some scientific stuff that no one cares about but scientists. C. elegans are similar to humans in the same way D. melanogaster (fruit flies) are similar to humans. Genetic and developmental regulators.
Does radiation and antigravity make such creatures mutate?
Radiation does cause things to mutate (although generally not in the grow an extra arm fashion). Antigravity does not. I don't think that these worms would have been to exposed to much greater radiation being in a space ship in space because the astronauts are not mutated upon returning home either.
What if these worms were carrying some sort of bacteria in their digestive system like tape worms and mosquitos do that are bredding grounds for new super viruses like SARS and illness like Malaria???
They were carrying bacteria in their digestive system, all organisms do. However, these bacteria would be particular to worms and not humans. And, see the previous argument on radiation. You have more to fear from the astronauts having mutant bacteria than the worms.
To some degree, this is a serious question, so I'll give it a serious answer: C. elegans serves as a useful model of development in multicellular animals (like us) because it's about the most primitive animal that still has basic systems like a nervous system, a digestive system, etc. It's also very tough (as this incident proves), reproduces quickly, and is easy to tinker with in the lab. IIRC, it was the first animal to have its genome completely sequenced.
It also shows the capacity for rudimentary learning, making it of great interest to neuroscientist, since it's a lot easier to study the ~300 neurons in a typical C. elegans than the rather larger number found in more compex organisms.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.