No, Space Did Not Permanently Alter 7 Percent of Scott Kelly's DNA (theverge.com)

Several stories this week have proclaimed that the DNA of former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly changed during his year living on the International Space Station. The stories say that 7 percent of his genes did not return back to normal when he came back to Earth. It makes it seem as if the space environment permanently altered his genetic code. The problem? That's not true. From a report: The mistake stems from an inaccurate interpretation of NASA's ongoing Twins Study. When Scott went to space in 2015, his identical twin Mark -- also a former NASA astronaut -- stayed on the ground. The idea was that Mark would serve as a control subject -- a nearly identical genetic copy that NASA could use to figure out how the space environment changed Scott's body. Some fascinating results have come out of the experiment. For one thing, Scott's gut bacteria changed significantly while he was in space. And yes, he did experience genetic changes. The protective caps on the ends of his DNA strands -- known as telomeres -- increased while in space. But space didn't permenantly alter 7 percent of his DNA. [...] NASA also confirmed this in a statement to The Verge: "Scott's DNA did not fundamentally change," a NASA spokesperson said. "What researchers did observe are changes in gene expression, which is how your body reacts to your environment. This likely is within the range for humans under stress, such as mountain climbing or SCUBA diving."

Comments

Aging slowed down?

[SCVonSteroids]

Telomere increase? Maybe I'm just lacking a couple morning coffees here but doesn't that mean the effects of aging would be much less present in space?

Re: Aging slowed down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. There is a tradeoff though: longer telomeres means increased susceptibility to cancer. We know how to make telomerase (a natural enzyme that grows telomeres), but there's a reason we've only been doing it to lab rats so far.

That's referred to as the Transcriptome

[damn_registrars]

As the genome is the collection of genes, the transcriptome is the collection of gene transcripts (expressed genes). As most learn in biology 101, the flow of information (generally) goes DNA -> RNA -> Protein (also called the central dogma of molecular biology). The RNA transcriptome is an exceptionally dynamic entity, changing over time and space normally.

Now if we can get more information on which genes changed the most in transcription while in space, that would be really interesting. Hopefully there is a paper coming up on that, or a data dump that we'll see soon so bioinformaticists can mine it.

Reporters today kinda suck

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the quality of technical reporting today, 99% of it just sucks from the major sources like AP and big print news. Part of this is technology is moving so fast most reporters don't have the skills or experience to understand. It's not fair to expect them to keep up to date, when engineers in the field have a tough time keeping up.

The other problem is the total shit job public education is doing with science. They're not teaching kids to use the scientific method to analyze things. They're teaching kids to pass tests. It's not the fault of the good teachers trying their best to educate kids. The system fucking broken. Schools get less funding if their test scores aren't good, which means teachers have to prepare the kids to do well on standardized tests. Teaching a kid to think analytically doesn't always translate to doing well on tests.

Re:Counter-intuitive: telomeres increased?

[DrTJ]

The nice and constructive feedback would be

Yes, such a process is already discovered and it's called telomerase reverse transcriptase (aka TERT or hTERT in humans), and more information can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The article is requires some intimacy of cell biology, but, as expected, TERT does play a role in the life expectancy of a cell, immortality, cancer and there is some therapeutic potential (with e.g. isoprenoids and curcumin). ... and for the record, I asked Brin & Page if I could install their company on my device, but they said that it came with some hefty system requirements.

Re:Now it makes so much more sense

[DontBeAMoran]

Of course not!

It's going to make you one of the Fantastic Four!