How Tiny Worms Could Help Humans Colonize Mars

Pierre Bezukhov writes "The roundworm has about 20,000 protein-coding genes — nearly as many as humans, who have about 23,000. Furthermore, there is a lot of overlap between our genome and theirs, with many genes performing roughly the same functions in both species. Launching C. elegans roundworms to Mars would allow scientists to see just how dangerous the high radiation levels found in deep space — and on the Red Planet's surface — are to animal life. 'Worms allow us to detect changes in growth, development, reproduction and behavior in response to environmental conditions such as toxins or in response to deep space missions,' said Nathaniel Szewczyk of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. 'Given the high failure rate of Mars missions, use of worms allows us to safely and relatively cheaply test spacecraft systems prior to manned missions,' he adds."

Comments

Not the best model for radiation

[Samantha Wright]

There's a reason C. elegans isn't used in basic cell cycle research as much as yeast. It doesn't continually replace its cells at maturity. Consequentially, DNA-damaging environmental conditions have a much lower chance of affecting them at maturity than humans.

Re:Not the best model for radiation

[newcastlejon]

Perhaps the choice of test subject had more to do with the ease of tending to them automatically over such a long time frame; using larger organisms like lab mice would likely be impractical. Methinks the similarity in the size of the genome is a happy coincidence.

What puzzles me is why it's necessary to send animals to Mars at all. Are there really that many more cosmic rays en route to Mars than there are where the ISS is?

Re:Not the best model for radiation

[crakbone]

The ISS is behind the Van Allen Belt and protected from a large amount of cosmic radiation by it.

Re:Not the best model for radiation

[drerwk]

GP in first sentence says yeast is better than C.elegans. So I say send a beer to Mars, say a nice Belgian Trappist Ale.

Re:Not the best model for radiation

[Baloroth]

What puzzles me is why it's necessary to send animals to Mars at all. Are there really that many more cosmic rays en route to Mars than there are where the ISS is?

Courtesy of the Magnetosphere, yes. The ISS is only about 300km up, while the magnetosphere extends over a dozen Earth radii (tens of thousands of km), blocking most radiation. There is far more in space than in Earth orbit.

Re:Not the best model for radiation

[Nidi62]

GP in first sentence says yeast is better than C.elegans. So I say send a beer to Mars, say a nice Belgian Trappist Ale.

And you can send a few cans of Bud Light to see how the trip would affect water.

all we need to send

[thrillseeker]

is a single kudzu seed

Mutant worms and sand

[DJ Jones]

I'm seeing a Kevin Bacon movie in the making here.

Re:What can go wrong with this?

[Fluffeh]

In Soviet Russia worms colonize YOU!

I think you meant to say In the Amazon Basin worms colonize YOU!

Re:What can go wrong with this?

[masternerdguy]

The Spice Must Flow

so, a low cost alternatve..

[wierd_w]

If they are going to send parasitic worms with complex dna into space, I still think they should send politicians and *IAA lawyers instead. By most prevailing opinions, these subhuman creatures would service mankind far more as biological radio dosemeters than in their natural political niches here on earth. Yes, the expense of sending them would be much greater than sending the genetically and biologically similar roundworms, but this is FOR SCIENCE!