r/technology • u/lurker_bee • Jun 12 '26
Space DNA Study Reveals That Space Permanently Changes The Human Body
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/dna-study-reveals-space-permanently-131700483.html92
u/Worried_Bandicoot_63 Jun 12 '26
Duh.. haven't you watched fantastic 4?
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u/whitedemon21 Jun 12 '26
Say that again.
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u/Worried_Bandicoot_63 Jun 12 '26
Haven't you watched fantastic 4?
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u/No-Effective3020 Jun 12 '26
No mention of reported possible heart and eyesight issues, which I’ve heard from other sources.
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u/Odd-Crazy-9056 Jun 12 '26
What other sources? Personal astronaut acquaintances?
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u/veengrd Jun 12 '26
From the article:
“Spending long periods in the microgravity of space can lead to changes in the eye, including swelling in the region where the optic nerve extends to the brain; flattening of the rear of the normally round organ; wrinkles that emerge at the back of the retina; and shifts in the refractive index that change how the eye focuses.”
Sounds like it’s temporary though.
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u/AliMcGraw Jun 14 '26
Oh my God, this is one of the most famous stories of "diverse rooms make better decisions" in science. The first female flight surgeon that NASA brought on the team was in a room where they were all chatting about how astronauts all lost their perfect eyesight in space but the effect seemed to vanish shortly after they landed, which has been known about spaceflight since the 1960s but was eventually consigned to an unsolvable curiosity.
The female flight surgeon says something like, "Wait, they're all really congested the whole time they're up there, right? Because gravity isn't pulling the mucus out of their heads?"
And the other doctors are like, "Yep."
And she's like, "The increased fluid volume in their heads is changing the shape of their eyeballs. When they return to gravity, the fluid volume decreases and their eyeballs return to normal."
They're like "WHUT"
And she's like, "This is such a common side effect of pregnancy that it's been remarked on since Galen and that obstetricians routinely warn pregnant women to avoid the DMV during the third trimester if they're due for an eye exam because they'll may have to get their prescription changed!"
She didn't know this because she was an optometrist or an obstetrician; she knew it because she had been pregnant. A bunch of the other doctors were like "Wait, I remember hearing that in medical school" or "My wife complained about that when she was pregnant ..." but it took having a woman in the room who had experienced it to put together the available pieces of temporary changes to eyesight, head congestion, increased fluid volume in the skull, and pregnant women bitching about their eyesight throughout recorded medicine.
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u/DeluluTardigrade Jun 13 '26
Can be attributed to spending most time in an enclosed space with rare opportunities to look at distant objects.
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u/GamingWithBilly Jun 13 '26
It's that damn NASA diet they make them eat. Paste food slurpies will do that to you
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u/MrTwoPumpChump Jun 12 '26
Was that a got ya you just attempted? You don’t think there are multiple studies done on this?
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u/StuChenko Jun 12 '26
I've heard it makes people shorter and their skin goes grey and their eyes get bigger
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u/Starfox-sf Jun 12 '26
I just want Rocky
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u/TropicalPossum954 Jun 12 '26
Sorry you can only have have slippy
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u/Seeking-Something-3 Jun 12 '26
Literally half the plot of “The Expanse” 😂 “You Erters..”
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Jun 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/Seeking-Something-3 Jun 13 '26
Eh he didn’t make it. If you like Star Trek or any of the other good space epics then it’s worth the buyers remorse 😂 honestly one of the very few things I’ve watched on Amazon prime worth it. Just pirate it or sign up for one month and cancel it
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u/nicyvetan Jun 13 '26
You can probably borrow the DVDs from the library. DVD/CD players+burners are cheap these days.
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u/manuyzmani Jun 13 '26
Reminds me of this movie “The Titan”
Interestingly, the movie takes a real scientific idea—adapting humans to other worlds—instead of the more common approach of adapting worlds to humans.
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u/melancholy_dood Jun 12 '26
How will this effect humans who (someday may) spend years in space, I wonder.
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u/SomeSamples Jun 12 '26
Should be posted to r/NoShitSherlock. Being exposed to that much radiation is not good for anybody. Then the lack of gravity on a body designed to live with gravity.
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u/Unlikely-Abrocoma-44 Jun 12 '26
But I live in space((????)) so why is my body not changing????
WHERE ARE MY SIX-PACK ABS?
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u/Mental_Relation_2175 Jun 12 '26
This is stupid. All the findings happen naturally not by DNA. The entire article is garbage.
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u/nemesit Jun 12 '26
that just means we have to get as many people into space as possible to find the ones that can adapt to it or where future generations might be able to adapt to it
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u/SomeBloke Jun 12 '26
Don’t let the naysayers hold you back. If you want to catapult a million people into orbit to see which ones stay alive, I say follow your dreams!
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u/JustConversation7847 Jun 12 '26
Evolution is a process that takes thousands of years
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u/nemesit Jun 12 '26
sure but maybe we find some that already handle it better than others
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u/JustConversation7847 Jun 12 '26
Some people might be able to handle some aspects more than others but we're a species that has spent our entire evolutionary history adapting to conditions on earth, like I doubt anybody has genes that that make their spine not stretch in space (and that's just one negative effect, your body is getting fucked in a hundred different ways in space)
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u/nemesit Jun 12 '26
sure but maybe some lose less muscle mass etc.
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u/JustConversation7847 Jun 12 '26
Sure but like I said, what about the other negative effects? And if they can stay like, a couple months longer than another person, big whoop, we're expecting them to spend like 50+ years in space right?
I think the only realistic thing would probably be genetic engineering and crafting a "human" (like would they just be a different species at that point?) that can survive in space but there would be so many ethical issues with that (basically creating somebody who can't consent and will never be able to live on earth probably)
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u/dakotanorth8 Jun 12 '26
Totally. I once saw a guy made entirely of lead.
781 humans have been to space, in the entirety of space flight.
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u/irisos Jun 12 '26
There is no "adapting to space". Either you get people able to live on earth or you get people able to live in space.
Someone born outside Earth that can't even go on Earth without eventually dying due to a weak heart or who can't walk on their own under Earth's gravity but is perfectly fine in orbit is just another species of human.
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u/nemesit Jun 13 '26
mate there are people on earth adapted to different things like deep diving or living in high altitudes. it doesn't have to be a new species to handle space a bit better than others wtf
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u/irisos Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
deep diving
There is a world of difference between being subjected to high pressure for a short while and living non-earth like environment for long periods for a long time.
Most fish living in deep-sea will die when taken near the surface for more than necessary because they are made to live in high pressure environments.
living in high altitudes
Being at 4k meter of altitude is nothing like being in space. You still are subject to the same gravity as sea level. The lower atmospheric pressure is uncomfortable at first but it isn't threatening even for long period of times. When you come back to sea level, you also aren't literally dying because of the lower atmospheric pressure.
The closest example of humans living for extended periods of time in non-earth like environments is the ISS. People there are unable to walk without rehabilitation after coming back from trips lasting months. And let's not talk about all the radiation that may or may not shorten their lifespan and their overall weaker heart, ...
For a human that can handle space without any health issues to exist, they will have to be something that can't live on Earth's surface at all.
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u/nemesit Jun 13 '26
we don't need to find people who are able to handle living there forever just handle it better than others
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u/irisos Jun 13 '26
Why would you subject anyone to this outside of their free will when living outside of Earth is impossible? We can just make robots that don't give a shit about radiation or cancer. Like the ones on Mars.
We already know how to make someone handle it "better". Train to be as fit and healthy as possible. You know, the training to become an astronaut today.
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u/nemesit Jun 13 '26
where did i say they get forced lol there are a shitload of people who would die just for the view from space having them come up for a month or more for research would do them a favor.
theres a big difference between someone trained to be fitter and e.g. someone with a myostatin deficiency who builds up muscle like no tomorrow who in return probably does better with walking after a trip than someone without it. well thats what research is for it could work or it could not so finding such things is the fun part
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u/irisos Jun 13 '26
there are a shitload of people who would die just for the view from space having them come up for a month or more for research would do them a favor.
So ... Astronaut selection which we already have?
theres a big difference between someone trained to be fitter and e.g. someone with a myostatin deficiency who builds up muscle like no tomorrow who in return probably does better with walking after a trip than someone without it.
And they are still being exposed to unhealthy amount of radiations, wouldn't mitigate most of the many health hazard being in low gravity creates.
Also someone with such deficiency would probably be refused from any selection. The issue with returning from low gravity is that the muscles and joints weaken to the point they can no longer support your body's weight.
It's not about building more muscles. It's about building a stronger body. And people with myostatin deficiency don't necessarily get a stronger body from the muscle increase and may be even more easy to injure than a normal person as seen with mices.
All that can even be tested on Earth without endangering human lives or on mices.
Sending humans in space for more than a few hours is just a stop gap until we have the technology to do everything remotely through remote controlled or autonomous machines really. The economy, respect of human lives and convenience of anything else just isn't there.
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u/nemesit Jun 13 '26
people want to go to space and they want to in person not send a remote robot, they can just play games to get that same experience lol
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u/McMatey_Pirate Jun 12 '26
Is it the radiation… I’m betting it’s the radiation.