Spaceworms? A Biological Threat From Space?

.....According to the specialists from the Russian Academic Institute of Micro-Biological Problems, which took part in the Mir space research, the first microorganisms--bacteria and fungi--were found right after the station was placed into the orbit 16 years ago. They were carried on board together with the space cargo. Although both the space shuttles and the cargo had to undergo a thorough anti-bacterial test, complete sterilization was impossible.

Throughout Mir's life in space, the number of microorganisms grew continuously, one generation replacing another every 20-30 minutes. If in 1990 there were registered 94 species, in 2001 they numbered 140. But the real problem was not the species increasing in number but their growing aggressiveness: each new generation seemed to be more ferocious than the last.......

....But even more intriguing were the revelations of Russian space crewmember Anatoly Serebrov, who confessed that it was not merely microorganisms, which underwent mutations. Several Russian newspapers referred to him saying he had also seen mutating worms. "When one of the station's devices failed and I set to dissembling it, I found there a yellow worm more than a meter long& I have not seen anything of the kind on the Earth," Serebrov said.....

Originally posted by Dermo
....Won't MIR burn up on reentry?

These allegations gave rise to a series of sensational news pieces last year. The stories held that, having come into contact with the local terrestrial species, the "space mutes" would start eating plastic, metal and glass and emit poisonous exhalations.

Igor Popov is a freelance writer based in Moscow, Russia.

Originally posted by kcfusion
Very interesting indeed, was'nt there a thread about some sort of fungus growing on one of the legs of the Rover explorer, I cant find the thread but will post it when i find it.

Where are these news pieces? You're source is VERY questionable.

Igor Popov is a freelance writer based in Moscow, Russia.

Now that the Zvezda service module has docked and the International Space Station will soon be habitable, a growing number of cosmonauts and astronauts could soon face a new threat -- space fungus.

During a recent mission, Mir crew members noticed that the view from the station's porthole was deteriorating due to an unknown film that was spreading like some horror-movie scum.
The porthole was examined carefully after the crew returned to Earth, with the results shocking researchers and engineers. Although the porthole and other windows were made of extra-hard quartz glass and mounted on titanium covered with enamel, they were partly destroyed by a colony of fungi and bacteria visible to the naked eye.
Engineers later learned that the fungi also damaged electronic equipment on Mir, including a control block for a communications device used on the outpost from 1997 to 1998 during the 24th main mission to Mir.
The microorganisms crept under the steel cover of the block and sat on electrical contacts and polyurethane pieces. As a result, parts of copper cables located nearby also were oxidized.
Subsistence for the microorganisms was certainly not the metal, glass and plastic of those devices, said Natalia Novikova, a deputy chief of the Department at the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow.
"They consume organic stuff which consists of skin epithelia, lipids and other products of human activity," Novikova said. "These products get into the station atmosphere from human breath, sweat etc.and stick to the stations surfaces."

When Russia's Mir space station falls into Earth's atmosphere this week, the most publicized danger is of one of the fiery pieces crash-landing in an occupied area.
However, when Mir lands on Earth, it may also bring with it a more insidious threat - fungi mutated by their long tenure on the 15-year-old spacecraft.
UA planetary sciences professor Jonathan Lunine, who has done research involving the detection of life on other planets, said the Mir fungus, however, is not a problem for Earth.
"It doesn't seem to be a really terrible threat," he said.
According to wire reports, Russia's Institute of Medical and Biological Problems has isolated aggressive fungi that have inhabited the inside of Mir's control panels and air ducts. The problem came to the attention of space officials when one of Mir's portholes was partially destroyed by a visible fungus colony.
NASA documents reveal that astronauts aboard the Russian space station were cognizant of the fungi and routinely wiped down the interior of the orbiter with specially-prepared fungicidal towels.

Microbes Gain Strength in Space

The salmonella experiment was flown aboard NASA's space shuttle mission STS-115.

Space flight has been shown to have a profound impact on human physiology as the body adapts to zero-gravity environments. Now, a new study led by researchers from ASU’s Biodesign Institute has shown that the tiniest passengers flown in space – microbes – can be equally affected by space flight, making them more infectious pathogens.

“Space flight alters cellular and physiological responses in astronauts, including the immune response,” says Cheryl Nickerson, who led a project aboard NASA’s space shuttle mission STS-115 (September 2006) involving an international collaboration between NASA, ASU and 12 other research institutions. “However, relatively little was known about microbial changes to infectious disease risk in response to space flight.”

Nickerson and lead author James Wilson, professors in ASU’s School of Life Sciences, have performed the first study of its kind to investigate the effect of space flight on the genetic responses and disease-causing potential, or virulence, of Salmonella typhimurium, the main bacterial culprit of food poisoning. Their results, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal a key role for a master regulator, called Hfq, in triggering the genetic changes that show an increase in the virulence of salmonella as a result of space flight.

The results of these studies hold potential to greatly advance infectious disease research in space and on Earth, and could lead to the development of new therapeutics to treat and prevent infectious disease.

To study the effects of space flight, Nickerson and colleagues sent specially contained tubes of salmonella in an experimental payload aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. The tubes of bacteria were placed in triple containment for safety, and posed no threat to the health and safety of the crew.

By: Leslie Mullen


When diseases cross the species barrier and infect humans, they dominate news headlines. Just imagine, then, the reaction if potentially infectious pathogens were found in rock samples from Mars.
Credit: NASA


As we look toward exploring other worlds, and perhaps even bringing samples back to Earth for testing, astrobiologists have to wonder: could alien pathogens cross the "planet" barrier and wreak havoc on our world?

Even though there is no proof of bacterial or viral pathogens anywhere except Earth, there is already a worried advocacy group called the International Committee Against Martian Sample Return, and science fiction novels like "The Andromeda Strain" depict nightmare alien infection scenarios. The possibility of cross-planetary contamination has concerned NASA since the early days of the Apollo program, so, as a precaution, the astronauts were quarantined for three weeks after they left the moon.

.....Compared to bacteria that remained on Earth, the space-traveling salmonella had changed expression of 167 genes. After the flight, animal virulence studies showed that bacteria that were flown in space were almost three times as likely to cause disease when compared with control bacteria grown on the ground.

Originally posted by ziggystar60

They consume organic stuff which consists of skin epithelia, lipids and other products of human activity....