Posted on 05/20/2025 9:01:27 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Chinese scientists discovered a novel strain of bacterium with “unique abilities” that allowed it to thrive on the Tiangong Space Station, according to a report. The newly named Niallia tiangongensis was isolated by taikonauts from surface hardware on the China Space Station, according to a paper from the Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.
The novel strain is closely related to the terrestrial bacterium Niallia circulans, which is found in soil, sewage, food and human stool — but exhibits several mutations that could prove beneficial in the study of life as it moves out into space, the paper claimed. Scientists said the novel strain “demonstrates a unique ability to hydrolyze gelatin suggesting that it can utilize gelatin as a substrate in nutrient-limited environments,” according to the paper.
Nialla t. further showed “structural and functional” difference in two key proteins which “may enhance” biofilm formation, oxidative stress response and repair radiation damage, scientists claimed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
What could possibly go wrong?
Go wrong for whom? For some people it may be going very right.
This sounds suspiciously like “gain-of-function” to me.
It will later be revealed that some very clandestine agents infiltrated the Chicoms space program and introduced a brand new weapon of mass anticommunism. It makes the person start considering the free enterprise system. The weapon is called:
Trumplococcus
“Species” redux. Eerie!
Was it in their freeze-dried Bat Soup (from the Wuhan Space Food Company)?
The big assumption is that the “novel” bacteria has certain mutations....maybe it has the genes already and was living in the earthly populations of Niallia species...but the harsh conditions of space killed off the less hardy cousins.
On the down side, bacteria which produce biofilms are difficult to eradicate if they infect animal tissue, resistance to oxidative stress means that it can resist the killing effect of pure O2...and being able to survive radiation takes out another way to kill these bacteria.
The Chinese Space station needs to stay up there and be completely disinfected before it gets back to earth.
Bad fish, fried rice??
Doubt there are any mutations involved. Much more likely that it is simply the expression of latent functions that were programmed in the DNA all along (i.e, epigenetics or similar phenomena). The notion that complex functions can just arise by chance is just so wonderfully naive.
One of my favorites. Just watched it last weekend.
The subtext here is that the Chinese have a space station in orbit that has been continually manned for a handful of years. Let’s be careful to understand what this means. It was not a multinational effort. It was purely Chinese, it’s in orbit at an altitude that can do excellent recon and nobody else is paying for it but them.
The Russians are leaving the ISS and building their own. They’ve already given required notice
Last time I saw it I was thinking
“Save that Chevy!”
And it has some tinted glass
Burning up on re-entry should do the trick.
It’s already gone wrong.
As if this hasn’t been expected for some time now.
Some good news - there’s a vaccine for that.
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