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Scientists found genetic mutations in every astronaut blood sample they studied
- 1970-01-01 4y ago>The samples were then cryogenically stored at -112 degrees Fahrenheit for around two decades. So "scientists" stored DNA for 20 years and then decided to take a closer look? Better than nothing, but not by much.
- jostmey 4y agoDNA sequencing wasn’t an economically feasible option 20 years ago
- 1970-01-01 4y agoOK 20 years maybe it wasn't worth the cost, but by 2011 it was only thousands of dollars. https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/DNA-Sequencing-Costs-Data https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/DNA-Sequen... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_sequencer#Comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_sequencer#Comparison
- bergenty 4y agoWell you’re not addressing the GPs concerns. The DNA could be severely damaged.
- klyrs 4y agoIf they did analysis using tools and methods that weren't available / affordable 20 years ago, then preserving the samples for that long might have been wise.
- anarticle 4y agoOuch, it is not uncommon to freeze samples for a long time, especially rare ones like this. You're free to peruse the literature on how this is an accepted practice.
- 1970-01-01 4y agoSo I did. Searched and read about it, found out the viability and recovery of cryopreserved PBMC has a clear downward slope. Samples are good for years, not decades.
- anarticle 4y agoThis depends on what you want to do. The DNA can certainly be sequenced. They might even be viable if you’re nice to them. What I mean to say is this is an accepted practice in many labs, including ones I have worked in. In my experience, these were old tumor cells stored in LN2. Sources include: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01131376 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01131376 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9336042/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9336042/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27792414/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27792414/
- kklisura 4y agoLayman question: Did gravity took any part on life creation on Earth? Do we even know if life or DNA can even form in non or low gravitational environment?
- blueprint 4y agoit's pretty certain that life in this form would not have formed without gravity though.
- mempko 4y agoI think the closest to a 'low gravity' environment is the oceans. So I suspect yes, life would form in low gravity environments. It would likely have more rotational symmetry vs mirror symmetry land animals have. You see a hint of that in ocean life where things are more...round.
- temp12192021 4y agoMost sealife has mirror symmetry though, doesn't it? I guess jellyfish, urchins meet the rotational symmetry though.
- Spooky23 4y agoThat’s about aerodynamics (hydrodynamics?), as water is more resistive than air.
- earleybird 4y agoNow you've got me wondering - what is the difference between buoyancy and low gravity (with respect to organism development/evolution)? Would there be any meaningful differences structurally?
- teeray 4y agoI would think yes. In a submarine, the vessel is buoyant, yet the contents are subject to regular gravity. I think the same reasoning applies to a body and its organs and fluids. Contrast with space where everything floats.
- gatane 4y agoThe fantastic four were right after all. Space radiation is no joke.
- astrobe_ 4y agoJoke aside, even for regular flight crews and passengers, it is a subject of concerns [1]. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11603132/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11603132/
- winternett 4y agoThe idea of how they recycle drinking water is also of high concern to me personally... What if the equipment breaks or underperforms? People constantly act as if science and technology is flawless in execution, but in reality it rarely is. There is also space radiation and other factors that can easily affect bio organisms, without any way of knowing what happened here on earth. COmpared to the ideals of Star Trek, we are still vastly primitive in terms of understanding space... Makes me kinda sad how much safety needs to be risked just to explore the outer bounds.
- homonculus1 4y agoYou're putting the cart before the horse. Exploration is cool BECAUSE it's risky. If it were a walk in the park it would just be data entry.
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- amelius 4y agoAnd the control group?
- fsniper 4y agoAnd how can we rule out that the mutations are not introduced in time at rest? All these blood samples are more than 20 years old.
- michaericalribo 4y agoMaybe the scientists manufactured the data with CRISPR. /s In seriousness, we can come up with lots of out-there scenarios. But this finding is intrinsically interesting enough to warrant discussion, critique, and further analysis. Your critiques aren’t a failure of the system, or a “dunk” on the scientific establishment. This open, democratic dialogue is _the entire point of the scientific publication process._
- fsniper 4y agoI am actually not critical of the deductions.I never even considered bad intentions. Being skeptical is required to get to reality. Do we really know if the storage procedures/ thawing procedures can't have a side effect of mutations on the samples? We are still learning too much about the epigenetics and we already know low temperatures can have adverse effects on tissues. So I just voiced my idea on this.
- onychomys 4y agoMutations are caused by errors in DNA repair mechanisms. Radioactive particles smash into DNA, breaking the bonds that hold it together. You have a whole system for DNA repair in your cells, but it's not 100% accurate, and so the more times you have to repair things, the more errors you're going to see. And the reason you'll never see it in random frozen samples from 20 years ago is that your cells have to be alive for it to happen, and those ones aren't.
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- JoshTko 4y agoDoes anyone know if astronaut living quarters are designed to have equipment, water etc. placed in a way to maximize shielding? I.e a water tank that is shaped like a shell rather than a tank.
- elmomle 4y agoWhile I don't know the answer, I'd think maintainability is the big constraint there. In the extreme case, imagine the difficulty of pinpointing and fixing any problem when all your systems are nested shells with a massive surface area. You'd need to take half the station apart any time something went wrong.
- amelius 4y agoQuestion: in space, is the direction where radiation comes from distributed evenly, is all radiation coming from one direction, or something else?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> in space, is the direction where radiation comes from distributed evenly, is all radiation coming from one direction, or something else? Mostly directionally from the Sun. Reflected radiation comes from the reflection surface. Cosmic background from dark sky (which isn’t all directions if you’re near a blocking body). That said, the point of these studies is to measure how much damage which kinds of radiation cause. So short answer, we’re not sure. (But probably the Sun.)
- amelius 4y agoOk. Now I'm wondering, if you go from the space ship, say 1000 km into the direction of the Sun, and then somehow apply a very small force to the radiation, would it be possible to make the radiation go past the space ship?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> then somehow apply a very small force to the radiation, would it be possible to make the radiation go past the space ship For charged particles, yes. This is how the earth’s magnetic field [1] protects us. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_magnetic_field#Magnetosphere https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_magnetic_field#Mag...
- habibur 4y agoWas expecting a number comparing the amount of mutation with a regular non-astronaut's genetic mutation. It's not there.
- jxramos 4y agoI don't get it, how is it that the simple question of "compared to what?" is just completely omitted and seemingly never even considered by so many authors? Do people just operate with plain dead end facts without context or curiosity about how normal is even characterized or distributed? Is the idea of a nominal case/measure/etc so foreign? I wonder what series of basic questions could be memorized that could be a tool for authors to ask themselves to elicit getting this information or at least stating that the answers are unknown.
- hedora 4y agoIf I were on a tenure review board, I would argue against treating Nature papers as peer reviewed publications. I keep seeing obvious “strong reject” clickbait from them, specifically. This paper is a prime example.
- michaericalribo 4y agoI’m confused…did you read the Science paper itself? In their _first paragraph_ they reference baseline genetic variation, and age-related mutation versus the mutations seen in cancer survivors and—as it turns out—astronauts, in the second paragraph. Lots more details and caveats on the limitations of the data elsewhere in the paper. You seem to be reacting to this article, which is a popular summary of the findings. I don’t even think it’s a misleading article—it conveys the qualitative conclusion (elevated rates of nonstandard mutations), and answers to the questions you posed are available in the full scientific study…
- gnfargbl 4y agoThe actual study can be read at https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-03777-z.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-03777-z.pdf. Methodology is given towards the end of the paper. In particular: "Variants [...] were compared with a normal dataset [...] created with sequencing data from seven young, healthy individuals."
- pvaldes 4y agoThey should have taken samples of the same age. Mutations accumulate over the entire life of the organism. The full experiment, using old samples that degrade also, looks badly designed to point to a predefined desired answer. It somehow ended in Nature, probably because "authority appeal"
- gz5 4y agoFrom the linked Nature article, my layman's interpretation is it seems a more severe finding (CHIP) was not found (and was possibly what they were looking for as CHIP may have indicated a potentially more material impact), and that this is more like an early, thin data set which can't be fully evaluated without more data: >We identified 34 nonsynonymous SNVs in 17 known CHdriver genes, of which TP53 and DNMT3A were the most frequent. Notably, clone size was small, ranging from 0.10% to 0.95% VAF, and thus did not achieve the technical threshold to be considered as CHIP and >Due to the lack of longitudinal samples and small sample size, conclusions regarding the implications of observed lesions remain limited, and further studies are required to assess the penetrance of these clones. Is that how the rest of you read this, especially those of you who are more expert?
- michaericalribo 4y agoI agree; that is basically my take, with two slight amendments: I didn’t have the sense there was a value judgement (more/less severe), so much as that CHIP is “typical” mutation seen in the wider population, associated with aging (itself a fascinating field of research), whereas something novel / nonstandard is causing CH mutations (space?? That’s the implication). On sample size, I read it as “this is interesting preliminary work that is surprisingly robust for the sample we have, and thus intrinsically notable.” But the passage you cite and the surrounding discussion indicates that this is far from conclusive—it’s a promising / interesting direction for more research to find out what’s the “there” there, if anything. These things _could_ be coincidental, but such a high rate of consistency is strong signal to investigate further. This paper propagates that surprising result, which is also a unique analysis because of the lack of data the authors acknowledge. Without publishing this, others would have no access to even this preliminary finding.
- Nokinside 4y agoNASA astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly are identical twins and scientists took the opportunity to do extensive tests with them. One pair of twins is not conclusive but the study is interesting. The NASA Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-long human spaceflight https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau8650 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau8650 NASA Twins Study Confirms Preliminary Findings https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-twins-study-confirms-preliminary-findings https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-twins-study-confirms-preli...
- areoform 4y agoFrom the paper, > We obtained de-identified whole blood samples from 14 astronauts who flew relatively short Space Shuttle missions (median 12 days) between 1998–2001. These samples were stored at −80°C for ~20 years. Blood samples were collected 10 days before flight, the day of landing, and 3 days after landing12. However, for this specific study, only samples from 3 days after landing (R + 3) were collected as buffy coats (peripheral blood mononuclear cells - PBMCs). One of the issues here is of the biased sample set. To say that astronauts are drawn from a small pool is a severe understatement. All astronauts from the stated era have, - High IQs - Absence of obvious psychopathologies - Extremely high stress tolerance - Faster (than the median) reaction times well into middle age - Usually within 3SD for M/F height, falling between 5' to 6'2 (6'4 at most) - High educational attainment And they've all done, - Scuba diving (sometimes including extended stays as aquanauts) - Pilot training (even if you're a scientist astronaut, they'll teach you how to fly, [edit - as Walter points out flight hours equal radiation exposure and NASA astronauts usually have to maintain a minimum of 180 hours per year to retain their flight status]) - *At least* one sport where they've risked their life - Undergone wilderness survival training, including a "hell week" of some sort, somewhere along the line - Experienced near drowning (part of training) and other similar stressors - (frequently but not always) Been a part of the military, including exposure to pollutants that we now know are carcinogenic or harmful. Additionally, during this period, unless they were an international astronaut, - They would eat similar foods, from the same places - Live in close proximity to each other - Grow up in roughly similar environments (though split between urban/rural environments) Of course, not all of these factors will impact their DNA, but the selection and similar life experiences creates a unique problem. Until we send more people up, we won't have enough data to say how space travel impacts and mutates us.
- WalterBright 4y agoPeople who fly a lot get significant cosmic radiation exposure.
- DoreenMichele 4y agoThank you very much. This is what I was thinking, more or less, and didn't know how to effectively articulate.
- possiblydrunk 4y ago20+ year old DNA samples, even stored deeply frozen, could accumulate damage that would be amplified during library prep prior to sequencing. To make the case, they would really need appropriate control samples from the same time periods stored under the same conditions.
- themanmaran 4y agoIt's also worth noting that the samples they used were from a totally different age bracket than the astronauts. Astronauts (aged 37–67) compared to "seven young, healthy individuals."
- anigbrowl 4y agoThis links to a (much better) better press release which in turn links to the original study. https://www.newswise.com/articles/researchers-find-spaceflight-may-be-associated-with-dna-mutations-and-increased-risk-of-developing-heart-disease-and-cancer https://www.newswise.com/articles/researchers-find-spaceflig... https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-03777-z.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-03777-z.pdf OP - and HN readers in general - please consider not submitting the first article you find on an interesting topic. Follow the links back and submit the best version you can find. You do not owe the clickbait outlet any sort of reward just because they promoted a bit of interesting news onto your radar. If there weren't so much clickbait, quality news would stand out much more easily. Science writers, maybe you want to inform the public by making information simple and accessible to a general audience. That's good. But if you just give them factoids and don't include any scientific reasoning (like a comparison to the baseline, or noting the absence of one) then you're just selling sugary snacks that are not really very nutritious.
- anoncow 4y ago> If there weren't so much clickbait, quality news would stand out much more easily. So much this. I took a break from some news websites a few years back, when I recently visited one of them, I was sad to see that many front page news articles had clickbait titles.
- kingkawn 4y agoSomehow each generation is convinced anew that their pearl clutching will be of any interest to others
- swatcoder 4y agoI agree with the sentiment of tracing a headline back to the topic's best coverage. But posting plain studies directly to non-industry forums is often not ideal. The studies are not written for a general audience and rely on jargon, shorthand, assumptions, and shared education that general audience readers are at least as likely to misinterpret as professional science writers. We like to beat up on science writers for writing poor and misrepresentative coverage of research, but are you sure a bunch of random (and often compulsively contrarian) intellectuals trying to earn internet points are an improvement? The best of both worlds is probably to find the best coverage, and then add the study in a comment.
- jeisc 4y agoHuman beings are earthbound creatures and can live in space only with the mother ship earth... which we are working on destroying. Something might survive and thrive in space of course if it were properly designed for that.
- mabbo 4y agoSetting aside the question of "compared to what?" (I presume they mean "more than normal folk"), I think it's more fun to brainstorm the question of "what could be done to prevent this?" I'm guessing that the mutation danger is because space is just full of radiation that various layers around the earth give us partial protection from. So what can be done in a hypothetical spacecraft to get the same level of protection? If we want to send people to Mars, or live in large numbers in space, these are fundamental problems to solve.
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- mxkopy 4y agoOf the proposed solutions, this one is my favorite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus I'd like to think that in this universe the best spacecraft asymptotically approach being a mushroom
- mabbo 4y agoOh that is a delightful idea. Now if we could breed them to also somehow produce usable fuel as a means of energy storage...
- green-salt 4y agoMaybe this is the beginning of living ships like in Farscape.
- Maursault 4y agoDepending on the actual scope of the study (how many they sampled), even if samples were anonymously labeled, publication is a bound to be a violation of the Federal Privacy Rule protecting astronauts' right to medical privacy.
- kingkawn 4y agoI should hope that the general plasticity of an organism would kick in when the environment so fundamentally shifts
- acqbu 4y agoThe obvious question is: How is this different from non-astronauts being affected by mutagens like chemicals and radiation? Are there any statistical differences?
- supernova87a 4y agoAs a comparison, I wonder if marine life under even just a few feet of water for their whole lives benefit from that added cosmic ray protection. Yet we don't see fish that live for hundreds of years just because of that, do we?
- teawrecks 4y agoInteresting point. It's not conclusive, but if you do a quick search for the longest living animal species, the vast majority of them do live (all or part of their life) in water. So maybe?
- natch 4y agoTechnically, so did I.
- wikitopian 4y agoSending humans into space is an expensive boondoggle that distracts and detracts from legitimate scientific research. Whether or not outer space scrambles your genes, we know for sure that we've scrambled several astronauts and nearly scrambled several more. I politely but firmly ask that we stop scrambling people to appease people who misplace their sense of wonder. Even if they volunteer to be scrambled.
- fnordpiglet 4y agoI for one welcome our mutant astronaut overlords.