Slashdot Mirror
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."
Many humans share common characteristics with worms, too.
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
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."
If they're the size of a pencil tip, just how many biological characteristics can they share with us?
I think they were the real cause of the crash, soon they'll start to take over the world unless they're stopped!
-- Hulver's site
Yes... because we humans are the size of a pencil tip. Then again, it's it good that they are not the size of a VW.
I do not control the Sig, the Sig controls me.
Let's make slashdot mods eat a fistful of them every time they posts a dupe :-) That would be a geeky punishment - being forced to eat space worms.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
The worms, C. elegans, share many biological characteristics with humans and are the size of a pencil tip."
"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. "
hrmm...
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
I'd like to pledge my loyalty to the alien overlord worms.
> The worms, C. elegans, share many biological
;-)
> characteristics with humans and are the size of a > pencil tip.
Humans? Size? Pencil Tip?
Well buddy yours might be that small but mine sure isn't
-- Having problems sending big files over the net? Try out Efisto (http://efisto.org)
When I was younger.... smaller and lighter I could easly jump out of a second story window onto the ground without causing myself any injury.
Now I'm older, taller and fatter there's no way I'd jump out of a second story window, it's hurt too much.
It's not too surprising that something small survived whilst the people died.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I, for one, welcome our new invertebrate overlords.
I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to... toil in their underground sugar caves.
Meep meep
I am no expert but I think these worms must be tolerant to high temperatures because the space shuttle gets really hot when entering the Earth's atmosphere. God know what else are they tolerant to?
The eggs were in a compartment underneath the floor of the crashed shuttle with spooky dry-ice fog lit by horizontally scanning laser beams.
A NASA spokesperson said
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Go here for more info (genetic) and a pic of them
This proves that life can survive a fiery impact with the earth -- like that of a meteor impact. On top of that, it's not even a single celled organism... even though these things are as small as pencil lead, they are somewhat organized multicellular organisms.
I would think this might add a little bit more credibility to the people who think life originated in somewhere other than Earth.
O.K...
Expressed in DVD's: The size of a tiny shard of the DVD you broke in half in disgust.
Expressed in LOC's: The size of a sliver of paper that fell off an extremely old tome that was contained within.
You asked for it!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
If the worms can survive the crash, why can't they build the whole shuttle out of whatever worms are made of?
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
I remember the news stories that said if you found a piece of the space shuttle and you touched it you could face a huge fine. Would this also mean if you got infected with a weird viurus or "worm" you could sue? Think of how terrible it would have (or was) if they had biotoxins on board the shuttle?
Does anyone know if these "similar to human" worms are harmful to humans?
What makes them similar to humans anyway?
Does radiation and antigravity make such creatures mutate? 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???
Not concerned or scared, just curious ...
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Just like the moon landings and that other thing.
I'm smarter than the average bear.
Tsk tsk - </. editors>>
;)
;)
:P
I read that as: "Escaped mutant worms have been found alive in space-shuttle wreckage!"
Bah, they were still in their containment ehh..container. How disappointing.
I figured the little buggers had escaped and survived in the foam insulation of the space-shuttle. Maybe I should cut down on my daily
intake of science fiction
Oh well, I'm surprised they didn't find any mutant fruit-flies (also from previous experiments
or a gigantic mutant space mould.
(Wasn't one of them growing on good ol' MIR?)
Hmmm....tasty spacebugs
The C. Elegans genome may be browsed here...
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
"The worms, C. elegans, share many biological characteristics with humans and are the size of a pencil tip."
Alright kids, enough with the George W. Junior jokes already. We know he's dumb but this is getting a little tired...
...what...
no?
oh alright carry on then...
Once again NASA opens a can of worms in their Columbia disaster enquiry!
My question is, if this was the fourth or fifth generation, what were they eating??
Probably the organic material that was on board.
...And airstrikes, and banana bombs and exploding sheep (sometimes).
:)
Why not shuttle accidents too? Should be a walk in the park for them!
I've tried six or seven of the solutions offered by the Spam emails, but no matter what I do I still get that pencil tip comparison all the time!
www.GamezCore.com For Hardcore PS2 Gamerz : By Hardcore PS2 Gamerz
C. elegans belongs to the phylum of nematodes.
Funnily, nematodes are called "sukkulamadot" in Finnish, which translates to "shuttle worms" in English.
It was only 4th or 5th generation (times 3 days) - hmmm did they find it 15 days after?
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
But seriously, this goes a long way to prove the panspermia theory. Or atleast to disprove all the nay-sayers. If a pencil-tip-sized worm can survive that impact, then bacteria should be able to survive the impact of a comet.
All this proves is that worms in a locker can survive a shuttle crash.
That's the problem with all these conspiracy theories and wacky beliefs about the world. Someone looks at two statements, one of which is fact, and they conclude the other is fact, because it just seems like it might be true based on the first one. They then use their new 'fact' as a basis for proving other things, and away we go.
Have any of the worms donned a space suit and escaped to save the princess?
Nobody else seems to be surprised that the worms are still alive. I hope NASA will try to understnad what kept them alive, the locker or the worm anatomy ?
;-).
This coul dend up with major consequences on space, and air travel safety (I'll ask for a locker myself next time I take the plane
Don't laugh, there is ongoing research and inovation and airplane safety, like the built-in parachute on the cirrus.
Didn't the same thing happen in Star Trek III?
The scientists better watch out, because we know how fast those things can mutate.
"This is not a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries."
Attorney General Mike Hatch on Microsoft
As they state in the article, C. elegans have a life cycle of 7-10 days. As they also state in the article, the shuttle, at the end of its mission, crashed on Feb. 1. That was 89 days ago. But somehow they've only managed to go through 4-5 generations? It's a pretty simple calculation.
More interesting (like CNN hasn't ever had a problem with pretty obvious facts) however is the survival. If we were talking about fungi or bacteria, organisms which are able to enter a dormant/stationary phase of the life cycle, it wouldn't be too surprising that they could survive. But C. elegans just have a pretty basic (egg-->larva-->adult) life cycle so they don't have a mechanism for surviving extreme situations (like a flaming fireball smashing into earth).
One of the great things about C. elegans is that they're easy to mutagenize and determine which genes give rise to characteristics such as resistance to UV/ionizing radiation, long life, ability to consume large volumes of alcohol, etc. I hope that some of these super space worms get into the hands of folks like Leon Avery or Tim Schedl so they can figure out what helped these guys survive.
There's one thing computing teaches you, and that's that there's no point to remembering everything.
--Doug Copland
Shuttle astronauts have asked for their craft to be tightly packed with moss for the next mission.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
The space shuttle did disintegrate, but in terms of space bound meteorite impact, it was quite a controlled descent. It broke apart, looked fiery, but that doesn't mean it was a ball of plasma. A Fighter jet can break down and look fiery at just 200 feet off the ground...
My further point is that this article is somehow trying to strike the "oh look, things that have common characteristics with humans (in that their cells divide, and some of them have sperm <poster's humour>) made it alive through... it's not such a big tragedy after all."
The first thing that's mentionned in the article is:
All seven astronauts were killed when the shuttle disintegrated over Texas on February 1. Columbia contained almost 60 scientific investigations.
Anyways, boo on CNN, it both draws on sensationalism (exploiting a story because of it's tragic sense), and assumes readers are stupid...
You can just imagine it
Scientist: (Rumages about the debrise) Oh no...
Admin: What? What have you found?
Scientist: We've opened up a whole can of worms here...
>
> Right?
The secret's out! That ad campaign wasn't a guy in a cow suit, it was a worm in a cow suit!
The Terrible Secret of Space: "EAT MOR CHIKIN!"
Not only is the genome mapped out, but C. elegans has been a model organism for development. A complete flow-chart-esque understanding of the division of the first egg cell down to the last of its 959 cells. Its one of the first model organisms for a complete body-plan understanding of genetic development, but knowing the genes and figuring out the genes are 2 differant matters. Hence the experiments in space trying to understand how 0 g and amazingly controled environments affect gene expression.
Seeing as the Columbia Mission was the first *pure science* mission not having to do with Space Station construction in 2 years, I think its a great legacy for those who lost their lives that some really amazing science can come out of their work.
...because the shuttle becomes hot the astronauts have to be X-Men...
No. The astronauts would have become the Fantastic Four (plus) because the gamma radiation is what caused the shuttle to break up.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Hmmm... *clicks the CNN link*
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP)
Nope. Not at all.
Perhaps I'm feeding a troll here, but since you're logged in I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
The Associated Press (AP), to quote Yahoo! Finance (who, I'm sure, is in turn just quoting a press release), "the world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization, providing news content in text, audio, video, graphics and photos to more than 15,000 news outlets with a daily reach of 1 billion people worldwide... [and to] more than 120 nations."
News agencies pay for an AP news feed so that they can share the costs benefits of doing reporting. Rather than risk misquoting a story, most publications simply quote the AP feed more or less verbatim. Also, quite simply, why rewrite what you've already paid for? In paying for the AP (or Reuters, which is another news organization) news feed, it seems that they are allowed to copy the text which the industry has collectively paid AP to proofread.
It makes more economic sense than to use text that you already trust to be accurate and clear, rather than to pay someone to reword it.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
Heh. Actually, I believe it comes from earlier meaning of the word 'shuttle' (Finnish 'sukkula') - a weaving instrument that goes back and forth, or a reasonable facsimile of thereof that does something similar. The translation of 'Space Shuttle' was kind of literal and the name stuck.
Now where's his body?
5 generations removed x 10 day lifecycle = 50 days, maximum.
Discovery "this week" (say, Apr 25) - Shuttle Explosion Feb 1 = 89 days.
This doesn't account for the fact that the story says the current worms were 4-5 generations removed from worms placed in the can "in January", or the possibility that reproducing a generation may take less time than the life cycle.
Am I missing something, or are they?