Apparently being in space is has notable (mostly negative) impacts our your health:
What a Year in Space Did to Scott Kelly
An unprecedented and illuminating study monitored identical twins, one in space and one on Earth.
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The body, sensing and reacting to weightlessness, bristles at life in space. Fluids float freely and clog the sinuses, giving faces a puffy appearance. Bones, relieved of the job of bearing weight, thin. Muscles, faced with the same, atrophy. Parts of the eyeball, for reasons scientists are still trying to pin down, become squished or swollen. And from head to toe, cells, exposed to unearthly levels of radiation, become more at risk for cancer
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There do seem to be some mental boosts...but I'm guessing that might just be because of how intellectually rewarding it is to be an astronaut that finally gets to go to space.
There were some interesting genetic changes:
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Some of the most intriguing changes occurred at the chromosomal level, in the protective bits at the ends of chromosomes that make sure they replicate properly when cells divide. These caps, known as telomeres, are known to shorten as a result of stress. Researchers expected to see this change in Scott. Instead, the astronaut’s telomeres lengthened. “You might at first think, Oh, this is great. He’s going to live longer,” Susan Bailey, the Colorado State University professor who led the telomere research, once told me. “But the opposite side of that coin is always that it also increases cancer risk, because one of the very first things cancers do is turn telomerase on to maintain telomere length so they can essentially be immortal.”
Most of the telomeres bounced back after Scott returned to Earth, but he now has more short telomeres than he did before his mission. In general, this puts someone at greater risk for quicker aging, Bailey said.
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It seems mostly bad but I guess there could be something positive about the anti-aging impact of space potentially...before you get back to earth and age more.
04-10-2019, 01:12 PM
Hybrid Mode
