![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Those frozen squid returned to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship last night. Once there, the bacteria and squid were introduced and allowed to co-mingle for several hours within a specialized experimental chamber before being euthanized and frozen (science is brutal). On June 3, NASA blasted a bunch of newly-hatched bobtail squids, along with vibrio, into space as part of a SpaceX commercial resupply run to the International Space Station. Now Foster is investigating whether those same changes occur in outer space. “There’s all these changes to normal healthy development in a spaceflight environment,” Foster said. In simulated microgravity, changes to the bobtail squid’s immune system that typically occur once vibrio bacteria enter the light organ were delayed, while tissues that normally die after the symbiosis is initiated started dying sooner. Those interactions, the researchers found, are affected in numerous ways. In subsequent experiments on Earth, Foster and her colleagues explored whether the initial interactions between bobtail hatchlings and vibrio were affected by simulated microgravity in a rotating bioreactor. This pilot test not only proved that squid can survive the journey to space but that vibrio can successfully colonize their hosts in microgravity, the term for the extremely low gravity conditions aboard the ISS. In 2011, Foster managed to get several fruit-fly-sized squid hatchlings, along with vibrio bacteria, flown to the International Space Station (ISS) on STS-134 and 135, the last two missions of the Space Shuttle program. To understand how long-term spaceflight could alter the interactions between humans and their microbial partners, Foster has spent the last decade studying how the simpler squid-vibrio relationship changes outside Earth’s gravity well. “They kind of got overlooked,” Foster said. But despite a growing body of research suggesting some pathogenic bacteria can become more dangerous in microgravity, we know very little about what happens to the multitudes of bacteria that typically dwell peacefully inside our bodies. “When we send a fully formed astronaut into space, they have all of their microbes” including trillions of beneficial gut bacteria, University of Florida microbiologist Jamie Foster told The Science of Fiction. And one potential failure mode in these cross-kingdom relationships that scientists are very interested in is spaceflight. This fascinating symbiosis has turned the bobtail squid into a model organism for studying how animal-microbial partnerships work - and how they can fail. Inhabiting a specialized light organ within the squid's mantle cavity, vibrio cause their bobtail hosts to glow at night in a way that mimics downwelling starlight, preventing the squid from casting a shadow and making them harder for predators to spot. A colorful calamari that inhabits warm, shallow coastal waters of the Hawaiian archipelago, the bobtail squid has a unique symbiotic relationship with the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fischeri. While in fiction, squid-like aliens range from roughly human-sized to big enough to swallow entire starships, the only cephalopod that has actually been to space - according to public records at least - is the bite-sized Hawaiian bobtail squid ( Euprymna scolopes). As the space agency gears up to send humans back to the Moon and onward to Mars, the experiences of these spacefaring cephalopods may prove vital to keeping our astronauts healthy. Ten years ago, NASA actually sent squid into space. Space squid, however, are more than a science fiction trope. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu to the 'heptapods' in the 2016 science fiction film Arrival to The Simpsons' Kang and Kodos. This ancient, and at times, astonishingly intelligent, group of tentacled shapeshifters has inspired a diverse range of fictional beings, from H.P. Sometimes, all that really distinguishes them from us is green body paint.īut when writers need an alien that looks as un-human-like as possible, they often turn to a different group of organisms for inspiration: Cephalopods, the class of mollusks that includes octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish. Whether to save money on prosthetics and makeup or make them more relatable, extraterrestrial beings, more often than not, walk on two legs, have a bilaterally symmetric body and sport a single head with a small number of eyes. If you watch enough sci-fi, you’re probably aware that aliens often look a lot like. ![]()
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