The brightest take on this week’s science
Houston, we have an announcement: It’s World Space Week!
This year’s theme is “Living in Space”, so we’ve packed this edition with recent discoveries on life in microgravity.
Plus, next week you’re getting an exclusive look at our interviews with NASA astronauts and the innovative researchers making medicine in space. Stay tuned!
Now get ready for:
🤯 A mind-blowing fact: You can’t burp in space!
🔬 A microscope mystery from beyond this Earthly realm
Up and away we go!
LOOK IN
Spaceflight Accelerates The Aging of Cells
(EyeEm Mobile GmbH/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
Humans have been launching themselves into space since 1961, but what’s life in microgravity really doing to our bodies?
Scientists are still trying to work that out, and the results of recent experiments aren’t exactly comforting.
After just a month in orbit, blood-forming human stem cells show signs of premature aging.
The bad news is that some of these cells could no longer suppress their 'dark genome' – the so-called junk DNA that can wake up and disrupt immune function.
The good news is that the cells somewhat recovered when returned to Earth.
HEADLINES
Recent Discoveries on Life in Space
LOOK OUT
Microgravity Has a Scary Impact on Bones
(Cahill et al., PLOS ONE, 2025)
Astronauts can experience decades' worth of bone loss from their time in microgravity, and a new study on mice hints at why.
Rodents on board the International Space Station (ISS) have revealed the scary toll that microgravity can take on the mammal skeleton.
After just 37 days in orbit, the femurs of mice were riddled with large holes.
If these bones aren’t getting worked out like normal, it seems they begin to degrade.
Gravity might be weighing us mammals down, but it also gives us the strength to stand.
ZOOM ZONE
Microscope Mystery: What Do You See?
(On Being/Flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
A) Asteroid
B) Meteorite
C) Cosmic dust
D) Moon rock
Answer at the bottom.
LOW-KEY GENIUS
NASA Sends Longest Laser Message Ever
(Alberto Ghizzi Panizza/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)
Scientists at NASA are closer than ever to a laser communication system that can rapidly beam high-definition video from Mars to Earth.
In December, a spacecraft nearly 500 million kilometers away (over 300 million miles) – more than twice the average distance to Mars – shot a message back to our planet.
It’s the longest distance an Earth-bound laser message has ever traveled.
The laser system sends data at rates comparable to household broadband internet.
Perhaps a future colony on Mars will be watching Netflix.
WOW FACTOR
Science Fact of The Week
(NASA)
The saying ‘better out than in’ may not apply in space.
In microgravity, you can’t just freely burp like you can here on Earth. In space, a belch risks bringing up more than just air. After all, it’s not just gas that rises to the top of the stomach.
A burp in orbit is more like a spew… a ‘bomit’, if you will.
DOPAMINE HIT
Before You Go…
Life in microgravity is trippy 🤙
(NASA)
Microscope answer: A meteorite.
A slice of meteorite looks like stained glass under polarized light. The kaleidoscope of colors exists because of a fusion of crystals, shattered in a long-ago collision.
That’s all for today… see you next week!
- Carly
