NASA 'cleanrooms' found crawling with 26 new bacterial species
Not-so-clean rooms: Scientists discover 26 new microbe species in NASA spacecraft facility
Daily SumUp · Daily SumUp
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (sphinx.acast.com) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
Wait, aren't "clean" rooms supposed to be, well, "clean" of germs and other pesky microscopic particles?
Maybe not: A new study reports 26 new bacterial species were found growing inside cleanrooms associated with NASA space missions. Specifically, scientists looked in the cleanrooms used to prepare the Phoenix Mars lander for its August 2007 launch.
In the study, scientists analyzed microorganisms growing in the NASA cleanrooms, and discovered many of the new species possessed genes that made them resilient to decontamination and radiation.
"We are unraveling the mysteries of microbes that withstand the extreme conditions of space – organisms with the potential to revolutionize the life sciences, bioengineering, and interplanetary exploration," said Kasthuri Venkateswaran, retired senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a lead author of the study, in a statement.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.