Travelers In The Night5 Aug 2025

348E-371-2 Headed Space Worm

Humans are moving towards a day when there are space colonies in orbit, on the Moon, and the planet Mars, places where the force of gravity ranges between zero and 38% of what we experience every day. What effect will such different environments have on the regeneration of liver, skin, and other human body organs? To discover how the remarkable ability of Planaria flat worms to regenerate amputated body parts functions in a weightless environment researchers at Tufts University compared a group of whole and amputated flat worms which had lived for 5 weeks on the International Space Station with control groups which remained behind on planet Earth. The space faring flatworms were found to have undergone metabolic and other body function changes which persisted after they returned to Earth. Strangely one of the amputated worm fragments sent into space developed into an extremely rare double headed worm. Researchers were astonished since they had not seen this happen once during 5 years of observations of 15,000 worms. Further when both heads were removed from the space traveling double headed worm's middle section it grew 2 heads indicating that its body modification plan was permanent. The implications of these experiments for humans in space, if any, remain to be determined. Bottom line is we just don't know enough about how human reproduction and development will work off the Earth to plan on having permanent sustainable colonies elsewhere.

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Episoder(1000)

913-Moon Impact

Bill Gray is an astronomer who specializes in tracking objects in space which come near the Earth. In addition to natural objects like asteroids and comets Bill also tracks rocket boosters and space j...

21 Aug 2min

402E-443-Unsung Heroes

In 2017 observers in 50 countries at 440 different observatories made nearly 19 million observations of asteroids and comets which enable scientists to calculate where about 800,000 objects will be in...

18 Aug 2min

912-Boston Bolide

Recently on a Saturday afternoon a loud double booming sound startled residents of Massachusetts and Rhode Island as a large bolide meteor exploded high above. This type of space rock is a message fr...

14 Aug 2min

401E-442-Brian's Debut

During the only 3 clears hours of his first night solo as an asteroid hunter, my new Catalina Sky Survey teammate Brian Africano discovered two new Earth approaching asteroids with our Schmidt Telesco...

11 Aug 2min

911-Comet Brightness Explosion

Comet 220P/McNaught orbits the Sun once every 5.5 years on a path which is between Mars and Jupiter. At that extreme distance, more than 1.5 times the Earth’s distance from the Sun, it still receives ...

7 Aug 2min

400E-441-Carson's Pair

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Carson Fuls was observing, in the constellation Lynx, with our Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona , when within the space of only 35 minutes, he discovered two s...

4 Aug 2min

910-Mega Constellations

In an experiment that will involve all of the residents of planet Earth SpaceX has asked the FCC for permission to launch 1 million satellites into low Earth orbit to create a solar powered data cente...

31 Jul 2min

399E-440-Tracking Elon's Car

Elon Musk decided not to use a traditional mundane concrete block dummy payload for the first launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch vehicle to test his rockets lifting capabilities. After orbiting ...

28 Jul 2min