I would like to introduce you to Emily Seto, a Planetary Protection Engineer at JPL, NASA who cares deeply about antibiotic resistance. She is selling these cool t-shirts for 20$ (approx. 17€) to help the Children's Hospital Los Angeles - all the money goes to them! These are Emily's words: "I worked at a children’s hospital and public... Continue Reading →
Today's space exploration goals are ever more similar to a Star Trek scenario: we are aiming far, to go where no one has gone before. But the longer the space missions, the most likely it is something goes wrong. To make sure we are successful, our technology and science need to be aligned, and that involves... Continue Reading →
Today the International Space Station (ISS) is the main crewed, long-term habitable spacecraft. Over 200 astronauts have lived on the ISS, even if just for a few days. Living in space is nothing like living on Earth. Gravity is missing, radiation levels are higher and one could argue about the comfortable interior design. Being an indoor-closed... Continue Reading →
On the XVI century, bold sailors would go out to the unknown sea, facing storms, hunger and mysterious diseases. Kingdoms spent an outrageous amount of time, money and human resources to make their boats go faster and further. All of this meant betting on science and engineering, gathering smart, hardworking people who would lead, learn,... Continue Reading →
Astromycology, the study of fungi in space, is the new trendy science as the new tv series of Start Trek: Discovery casted Anthony Rapp to play an officer who's speciality is - you guessed it: astromycology. Well, this is good news! Even if the show fails in sientific accuracy, one cannot complain about the promotion of their own field of work.... Continue Reading →
Doing a PhD is, by definition, doing something new, and turns out I´m no different. In my thesis I will be working with two Fungi aka mould (yeah, the kind of mould you have on your bread or your walls) and these are called Penicillium and Aspergillus. My plan is to discover how they cope with space conditions:... Continue Reading →
I did it. I am doing a PhD in Space Microbiology at the German Aerospace Center! It officially started on monday, 3rd of April 2017, but before that there was a whole sea of things to prepare, so I´m couting the wonderful week of PhD preps as a crucial part of it :p #1 -... Continue Reading →
The current world-wide problem of antibiotic resistant bacteria has taken microbiologists to study deeper and deeper the effects of Space in antibiotic efficacy and on microbial virulence. We know now that bacteria can become more pathogenic while in microgravity, putting astronauts' health at risk. Staphylococcus aureus is one of the bacteria resistant to antibiotics, and it was one of... Continue Reading →
Deinococcus radiodurans is a bacterium that survives extreme doses of radiation: UV, X-rays, Υ-rays, you name it. This guy can stand it all! It took a while but here you go - you can download its coloring pdf! This #spacemicrobe is also considered a model organism for life under martian conditions and has recently traveled on the outside of the... Continue Reading →
At first sight, the microfossils found in ~4.28 billion-year-old rocks in Quebec are no more than tiny filaments and tubes. But on a closer look they can be records of the first microbes on Earth, and this means life on Earth could have emerged much sooner than what we thought! These results were published in Nature yesterday... Continue Reading →
Space Microbes 