microgravity

Hearts Weaken, Shrink And Become Spherical In Space

A new study of a dozen NASA astronauts has found that exposure to microgravity causes hearts to become more spherical in shape — a change that could lead to serious cardiac problems while in space and back on Earth. This is yet another study pointing to the hazards of prolonged exposure to extreme low gravity…

io9 George Dvorsky Mar 31

What the hell are 800 ants doing on the International Space Station?

No, it’s not a scene from a classic Simpson’s episode, but rather an experiment that could lead to highly adaptable robots. Last week, some 800 small black common pavement ants (Tetramorium caespitum) arrived at the ISS. The experiment, designed by Stanford biologist Deborah Gordon, is to determine how (and if) the ants will adjust to…

io9 George Dvorsky Jan 20

Going into space accelerates the aging process

As if astronauts didn’t already have enough health-related concerns to be worried about, a new study shows that microgravity environments speed up biological aging and the onset of cardiovascular disease by affecting blood vessel cells. Simply put, humans are not built for space. Even after short bursts of exposure to microgravity, astronauts suffer muscle atrophy,…

io9 George Dvorsky Nov 1

How to drink coffee in space without burning your face off

Zero gravity is all fine and well — but not being able to grab a cup of joe in the morning would be a huge dealbreaker for many prospective astronauts. Thankfully, NASA has a solution to the problem. Traditional cups are useless in microgravity environments. Liquids don’t drip or flow in space, so it just…

io9 George Dvorsky Jul 15

Behold a piece of art that could only be created in zero gravity

What do you do if you’re a physicist and want to get experiments done in microgravity, but can’t drum up the cash to go to space? You use magnets to both get results and make a picture that looks like it came out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. There’s a limited amount of room out…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jun 19

This is what happens when you play with fire in space

The simple flame is an extraordinarily complex phenomenon, one that involves thousands of chemical reactions. But fire also plays off the effects of gravity. So what happens when you take that gravity away? As a recent experiment aboard the ISS has shown, you get a very strange flame, indeed. We’ve talked about flames in space…

io9 George Dvorsky Jun 19

Proof that making burritos is more fun in space

Burritos are already the food that comes in a delicious wrapper, but there’s nothing quite as delightful as a zero-gravity burrito spinning around as you assemble it. In this scene from 2010’s Hubble 3D, an astronaut prepares for his spacewalk with a light, floating snack. [via Neatorama]

io9 Lauren Davis Jul 7

Long space journeys could wreck your eyeballs… and brain

Fresh off the news that microgravity screws us up on a cellular level comes word that it also damages our eyes and brain. Researchers from the University of Texas, Wyle Integrated Science and Engineering, and NASA’s Department of Space Medicine performed MRIs on 27 astronauts who had spent an average of 108 days in microgravity.…

io9 Tim Barribeau Mar 16

Microgravity screws us up at a cellular level

One of the great fears of the early space race was what effect microgravity would have on human explorers — and while we know it won’t instantly die when leaving the atmosphere, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the long term effects of low gravity. If we ever want to set up a…

io9 Tim Barribeau Feb 2

Fruit flies become slightly superpowered in zero gravity

Fruit flies were the very first animals we sent into space, way back in 1947 — yet we’re still not done analyzing what happens to them in microgravity. We’ve known for a while that when in “zero-gravity,” flies walk more quickly than they do planetside. The only problem is that we don’t know if this…

io9 Tim Barribeau Jan 4

A Mouse Defies Gravity Using Nothing But Magnets

In a study commissioned by NASA, a research team at the University of Missouri has made a mouse levitate, using nothing but magnetic fields. As a result, the poor mouse floats in mid-air, wondering where the ground went. The researchers put the three-week-old mouse in a specially designed chamber then applied an external magnetic field.…

io9 StephenGoldmeier Sep 9

Baby-Making is Tougher in Space

Many space age dreams involve humans spreading out into the far reaches of the galaxy, but our extraterrestrial breeding program might need a little help. Scientists in Japan have found microgravity may function as a form of birth control. A paper published in this week’s Public Library of Science ONE examined the obstacles to mammalian…

io9 Lauren Davis Aug 25

NASA Testing Next Generation Firefighting Gear for Fires… In Spaaace!

In space, no one can hear you scream “Fire.” Not that it’d matter, as few people could recognize a microgravity fire anyway. This means space firefighting gear needs to be special. NASA is on it. First, a primer. Fire in microgravity isn’t the flickering kind that happened when you set the house ablaze with your…

Space & Spaceflight Jack Loftus Apr 5

Hearts Weaken, Shrink And Become Spherical In Space

What the hell are 800 ants doing on the International Space Station?

Going into space accelerates the aging process

How to drink coffee in space without burning your face off

Behold a piece of art that could only be created in zero gravity

This is what happens when you play with fire in space

Proof that making burritos is more fun in space

Long space journeys could wreck your eyeballs… and brain

Microgravity screws us up at a cellular level

Fruit flies become slightly superpowered in zero gravity

A Mouse Defies Gravity Using Nothing But Magnets

Baby-Making is Tougher in Space

NASA Testing Next Generation Firefighting Gear for Fires… In Spaaace!

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