Sea plankton 'found living outside International Space Station'

Telegraph ^ | 21 Aug 2014 | Sarah Knapton,

[shove_it]

Sea plankton has been discovered living on the outside of the International Space Station, Russian cosmonauts have claimed. Scientists on board the ISS are reported to have discovered living organisms when taking samples from windows. Head of the Russian ISS orbital mission Vladimir Solovyev said the results of the experiment “are absolutely unique”. Solovyev told the Russian Itar-Tass news agency that the tiny marine life-forms were not native to the launch site in Kazakhstan. “Plankton in these stages of development could be found on the surface of the oceans,” he said.

“This is not typical for Baikonur [in Kazakhstan]. It means that there are some uplifting air currents which reach the station and settle on its surface.” However NASA say they are in the dark about the find. “As far as we're concerned, we haven't heard any official reports from our Roscosmos colleagues that they've found sea plankton," Nasa spokesperson Dan Huot told Space.com. Although Mr Huot confirmed that Russian cosmonauts had been taking samples from the windows on their side of the ISS, he claimed they were only looking for “residues that can build up on the visually sensitive elements". “What they’re actually looking for is residues that can build up on the visually sensitive elements, like windows, as well as just the hull of the ship itself that will build up whenever they do thruster firings for things like re-boosts. “That’s what they were taking samples for.I don't know where all the sea plankton talk is coming from,” Mr Huot added...

[Opinionated Blowhard]

This sounds like the beginning of a 50s science fiction / horror movie. When they come back to Earth, the plankton will turn into The Blob.

[alancarp]

If they’d just use the disinfectant every month or two, it would take care of that problem.

[southernmann]

Or the strain...

[caligatrux]

Life always finds a way.

[shove_it]

Bugs in Space ping

[DJ MacWoW]

Freepathon

Click The Pic To Donate

Donate And Finish The Job

[Dr. Sivana]

Maybe it’s time to revive theories of spontaneous generation.

[camle]

anybody ever see that movie ‘green slime’?

[mountainlion]

Global warming has escaped into space.

[Red Badger]

Problem solved................

[null and void]

Red Dwarf Ping!

[dfwgator]

ALL HAIL, PLANKTON!

[shove_it]

[Ben Ficklin]

"turn into the Blob"

Or a runaway red tide, or runaway red blob

[camle]

QAAGARS!!!!

[silverleaf]

space has pond scum

who knew

[Izzy Dunne]

And....... if there’s plankton there....... everybody knows what eats plankton...... can the whales be far behind ???

[shove_it]

“If this isn’t proof that sea levels are indeed rising, I do not know what is.” — Tele commentator

[BitWielder1]

Maybe it's not from the ocean, maybe the plankton in the ocean came from space.

Most likely we hooomans brought it there somehow.
It's amazing if it actually can survive in hard vacuum, radiation, heat and cold of space.
We could learn a lot from that either way.