Squids in Space!

[neufer]

Squid go into space – for the sake of humanity
by Michael Marshall, NewScientist, 13 May 2011

<<If the final launch of the space shuttle Endeavour goes ahead as planned next week, it will be carrying an unusual cargo: baby squid.

This is not because the astronauts want a change in their menu: the squid could help us understand how "good" bacteria behave in the microgravity of space. As Jamie Foster of the University of Florida in Gainesville, who is running the experiment, puts it: "Do good bacteria go bad?"

We already know that disease microbes grow faster and become more virulent if they are sent into space. In 2006 Salmonella bacteria were sent up on a space shuttle, and when they returned to Earth they were almost three times as likely to kill mice as normal (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0707155104). Escherichia coli also changes its behaviour.

These studies all focused on harmful bacteria. "This is the first to look at beneficial bacteria," Foster says.

Squid are cephalopods, a group of relatively intelligent animals that also includes octopuses and cuttlefish. Cephalopods have never been into space before – not in reality, at least. Foster has arranged to send up the bobtail squid Euprymna scolopes, a Pacific species that carries a cargo of bacteria called Vibrio fischeri in its body. The microbes colonise young squid soon after the squid hatch and set up home in their light organs. The squid use the bacteria to generate light, which they shine downwards to ensure they don't cast a visible shadow.

This is a classic example of mutualism: the two species cooperate and each benefits. Humans have similar relationships with microbes, which help shape our immune and digestive systems, but thousands of species are involved with us rather than just one. "Humans are way too complex," Foster says. Foster's experiment is simple. Newly hatched squid that have not yet encountered their bacterial partners will go up to orbit in tubes of seawater. 14 hours after launch, an astronaut will add the bacteria and give them 28 hours to colonise the squid. Then the squid will be killed and fixed solid, and brought back to Earth for examination.

Foster has some preliminary results from Earth-bound experiments that simulated microgravity and appeared to show problems with the uptake of bacteria by squid. If the shuttle study shows the same result, it would suggest that astronauts' relationships with their own microbes might also be affected in space. "We want to make sure the astronauts are healthy," she says.>>

[owlice]

When I first read this headline, I thought you might be announcing your travel on Endeavour. (Given the fate of the squid who will be traveling, I'm relieved you're not!)

[neufer]

When I first read this headline, I thought you might be announcing your travel on Endeavour.

That's an easy mistake to make:

<<Squidward Quincy Tentacles lives in a house shaped like an Easter Island Head. He works as a Cashier at the Krusty Krab, a job he dislikes. SpongeBob and Patrick consider Squidward their best friend, though the feeling is not mutual. He is a selfish individual and displays an unjustified air of superiority. He also has a large collection of self-portraits and is delusional about his talents (such as playing the clarinet/piano) though nobody around him considers him to be very good.

Squidward is a whiny stick-in-the-mud; a self-centered snob who imagines himself to be sophisticated and talented, but he's rather average and untalented. He's jealous, especially of his classy and successful nemesis, Squilliam Fancyson (a.k.a., Chris Peterson). He's quick to anger and just about everything annoys him. The Krusty Krab annoys him. Mr. Krabs annoys him. But most of all, SpongeBob annoys him, almost 24 hours a day. Besides working side by side with SpongeBob at the Krusty Krab, Squidward is SpongeBob's next-door neighbor. If it weren't for the fact that SpongeBob is the only one who appreciates his clarinet playing, modern dance routines, and artistic abilities, Squidward would have nothing to do with him. SpongeBob finds Squidward's grumpiness part of his charm, knowing that deep down Squid's got a good heart and likes to have fun, Squidward just doesn't know it!>>

(Given the fate of the squid who will be traveling, I'm relieved you're not!)

I'm not nearly as cute as the squid who'll be traveling.

[bystander]

Baby Squid, Bugs and Microbes Launched Into Space
Wired Science | Mark Brown | 2011 May 16

[i]A tardigrade or “water bear.”[/i] ([url=http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/extreme_chat.html]NASA/ESA/Dr. Ralph O. Schill[/url])

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[i]An adult bobtail squid.[/i] ([url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sepiola_atlantica.jpg]Hans Hillewaert/Wikimedia Commons[/url])

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On 16 May, 2011, a crowd of thousands flocked to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to witness the historic final launch of the Endeavour space shuttle.

Following days of delays and numerous technical issues, Endeavour was finally ready to ferry six astronauts to the International Space Station. During their 16 day trip the NASA researchers will drop off a $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which has been designed to study the formation of the Universe and search for evidence of dark matter and antimatter.

But there are also some other passengers on the shuttle, who might not receive the same media attention, sew-on patches and victory parades. Alongside the all-male crew of mission STS-134, six types of microorganism and a bobtail squid will strap in their seat-belts and head into space.

The five microorganisms will blast off on behalf of The Planetary Society’s Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment (LIFE), which will see if living organisms can make the trip into space, handle some zero-G exposure and take in a little low Earth orbit radiation.

The experiment would investigate the transpermia hypothesis — which suggests life on Earth may have been seeded by meteorites ripped off the surface of other planets like Venus or Mars. Whether or not the microbes can survive the ordeal would go a long way towards proving or debunking the controversial theory.

The microbes on-board Endeavour include the tardigrades (nicknamed Water Bears) which are large extremophiles that can withstand temperatures as biting as absolute zero, and as hot as 150 degrees Celsius. They’re joined by the Deinococcus radiodurans (which NASA dubbed “Conan the Bacterium“) which can survive upwards of 15,000 gy of radiation — 10 gy is more than enough to kill an average human.

Haloarcula marismortui (Old Salty) loves salt, and lives in levels of high salinity that would kill other organisms. Pyrococcus furiosus (Fire eater) is all about heat, and thrives in temperatures over 100 degrees Celsius. Cupriavidus metallidurans (which doesn’t have a nickname, unfortunately) plays a vital role in the formation of gold nuggets, thanks to its love of gold tetrachloride: a compound which is toxic to most other microorganisms.

Finally there’s Bacillus subtilis (The Average Joe), which is a model organism used in hundreds of biological experiments. It’s been into space many times before, so it’ll be a good comparison point for other studies.

This group of differently-skilled organisms is actually just a dress rehearsal for the real deal. LIFE’s next mission will be sending microorganisms to Phobos, the dusty innermost moon of Mars, to really put the transpermia hypothesis to the test. A second batch of microbes will take flight on Russia’s Fobos-Grunt lander, which will jet off towards the red planet in November 2011, and return to Earth with samples in the summer of 2014.

Space-faring microorganisms are so Apollo-era, though. So, here’s something new: the bobtail squid Euprymna scolopes will be the first cephalopod in space.

The experiment is less about the squid and more about the beneficial bacteria that skitter about in the sea creature’s body. Handy Vibrio fischeri microbes live in the squid’s organs, and the animal uses the bacteria to generate light which is cast downwards to blot out its own shadow.

Considering the way that some bad bacteria turn even nastier when subjected to the extreme temperatures and radiation of outer space (in 2007, Salmonella bacteria were three times more likely to kill their host mice after returning on a shuttle), NASA wants to see what happens to mutually beneficial microbes when they’re in space. Will good bacteria turn bad?

The baby squid on board Endeavour will be colonized with bacteria, and then it will be killed and fixed solid for examination back on Earth.

Once Endeavour’s payload is delivered, there is only one shuttle flight left in the program. The shuttle Atlantis will blast off on mission STS-135 on 28 June. After that, NASA will look to privately funded firms like SpaceX to carry out future missions.

[neufer]

The experiment is less about the squid and more about the beneficial bacteria that skitter about in the sea creature’s body. Handy Vibrio fischeri microbes live in the squid’s organs, and the animal uses the bacteria to generate light which is cast downwards to blot out its own shadow..

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

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<<I Married a Monster from Outer Space is a 1958 science fiction film. A young couple marries, but almost from the start the bride notices her husband is acting strangely. He doesn't drink alcohol or show emotion. Marge also becomes concerned that she cannot get pregnant. She then notices that other townsfolk are acting the same way. One night she follows Bill when he goes for a walk and finds that he's not the man she knew but an alien meeting up with his like. He eventually explains to her that all the females from his planet were killed and that the aliens from another world are taking over earth male bodies so that they can mate with women. Marge is horrified and tries to warn others of the plot. A recent review on Scifi.com summed up the movie like this: "I Married a Monster From Outer Space belongs next to the much better-known Invasion of the Body Snatchers on the roster of terribly titled science-fiction movies of the '50s that, when watched, turn out to be significantly better than anyone would have guessed."

• ........................................................
  Woman in Bar: Those guys ain't even giving us a hard look.
  ........................................................
  Marge Bradley Farrell: Your race has no women, it can't have children. It will die out.
  
  Bill Farrell: Eventually we'll have children with you.
  
  Marge Bradley Farrell: What kind of children?
  
  Bill Farrell: Our kind.>>

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[neufer]

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The inner workings of an early [b][color=#0000FF]SQUID[/color][/b]

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<<A SQUID (for Superconducting QUantum Interference Device) is a very sensitive magnetometer used to measure extremely weak magnetic fields, based on superconducting loops containing Josephson junctions.

SQUIDs are sensitive enough to measure fields as low as 5 aT (5×10⁻¹⁸ T) within a few days of averaged measurements. For comparison, a typical refrigerator magnet produces 0.01 tesla (10⁻² T), and some processes in animals produce very small magnetic fields between 10⁻⁹ T and 10⁻⁶ T.

The extreme sensitivity of SQUIDs makes them ideal for studies in biology. MagnetoenCEPHALOgraphy (MEG), for example, uses measurements from an array of SQUIDs to make inferences about neural activity inside brains. Because SQUIDs can operate at acquisition rates much higher than the highest temporal frequency of interest in the signals emitted by the brain, MEG achieves good temporal resolution. Another area where SQUIDs are used is magnetoGASTROgraphy, which is concerned with recording the weak magnetic fields of the stomach. A novel application of SQUIDs is the magnetic marker monitoring method, which is used to trace the path of orally applied drugs. In the clinical environment SQUIDs are used in cardiology for magnetic field imaging (MFI), which detects the magnetic field of the heart for diagnosis and risk stratification.

SQUIDs are being used as detectors to perform magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). While high field MRI uses precession fields of one to several teslas, SQUID-detected MRI uses measurement fields that lie in the microtesla regime. Since the MRI signal drops off as the square of the magnetic field, a SQUID is used as the detector because of its extreme sensitivity. SQUID-detected MRI has advantages over high field MRI systems such as the low cost required to build such a system and its compactness. The principle has been proven by imaging human extremities, and its future application may involve tumor screening.

Another application is the scanning SQUID microscope, which uses a SQUID immersed in liquid helium as the probe. The use of SQUIDs in oil prospecting, mineral exploration, earthquake prediction and geothermal energy surveying is becoming more widespread as superconductor technology develops. SQUIDs are also used as precision movement sensors in a variety of scientific applications, such as the detection of gravitational waves. Four SQUIDs were employed on Gravity Probe B in order to test the limits of the theory of general relativity.>>

[owlice]

I'm not nearly as cute as the squid who'll be traveling.

You are WAY cuter!

[geckzilla]

I dunno, bobtail squid is pretty cute... I mean, just look at the way his tentacles flap when he swims, and when he buries himself he brings out just two to help finish the job. Awww! I guarantee that no appendages on neufer are that cute. But let's not go into too much detail on the comparisons there.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[owlice]

Yes, they are cute! No red boots, though.

[neufer]

The Planetary Society Blog
By Emily Lakdawalla, Nov. 30, 2011

Reviews of space-themed books & products for young children
Fat Ladies in Spaaaaace: A body-positive coloring book
CreateSpace, $6.99
by Nicole Lorenz, 2011

<<You're probably curious about the story behind Fat Ladies in Spaaaaace: A body-positive coloring book. I certainly was! It originated at a panel at the feminist science fiction convention WisCon, where the question was asked: why aren't there any fat women in science fiction art? Artist and writer Nicole Lorenz set out to fix that, and created Fat Ladies in Spaaaace. The drawings are fun, each one bearing a one-sentence statement about the character -- among them, a space botanist, space pirate, space zombie hunter, space cruise ship traveler, and a "member of the elite bodyguard forces of the Space Pope." It's printed on very nice bright white paper, far superior to the usual coloring book newsprint. The book includes 18 drawings printed on one side only of each page. My girls and I colored a few pages one recent lazy Sunday morning. Anahita wrote "JPL" on hers!>>