Gadgetory

tonight Nasir is conducting terrifying experiments to work out where the space travel will kill us all how does the human body survive in space would your space to an out live you and what's the deal with the ending to interstellar I'm Claire Riley welcome to watch this space from the CNET studios in sydney this is your weekly guide to everything on earth you need to know about space and tonight's headlines you're old and you're going to die but in good news if you travel to space you might live a fraction longer side effects of living longer may include change gastrointestinal bacteria muscle and bone loss and the crippling knowledge of what lives in the vast emptiness of the black abyss as we start to think long-term about living in space researchers want to know what effect space life has on the human body and to conduct their tests NASA is using the most terrifying thing known to humankind twins here to explain our senate's twin news correspondents and editors at large Miley and Kylie Riley ladies thanks Claire she's totally right so NASA did this like twins study to like study twins and work out what the effects of space travel would be on to like totally identical people one of the names something really lame like mark and Scott we're so Scott Kelly lived in space for a year and he got to like Instagram from the International Space Station but then his brother Mark who's got this total like barista mustache real Tom Selleck died he had to stay back home bummer I know it was like Scott was the Kin and Mark with the Chloe anyway so when he comes back they do all these like tests and stuff and it turns out that Scott the cool space twin has like totally changed he's got like more inflammation and like less bone formation Ottawa yeah and then they found these changes in his chromosomes that meant he was going to totally live forever yeah thanks guys that's mostly right NASA conducted tests on the twins telomeres that's the little part at the end of each chromosome in our DNA the idea was that mark and Scott should be pretty similar at the molecular level twins am i right according to NASA telomeres get shorter as we age but after just one year in space Scott Kelly's telling me is on his white blood cells actually increased in length that microscopic change may mean that he extended his lifespan that is quite literally some space age after Scott returned to Earth NASA also revealed that while 93% of his genes return to normal after landing the remaining 7% pointed to quote longer term changes in genes relating to things like his immune system DNA repair and bone formation 7% isn't a huge difference but just like when your smug brother got back from his first trip around Europe Scott will be able to tell mark that spaceflight literally changed him so space changes your bones your DNA and your age and if my reading of that Wikipedia article on Einstein's special theory of relativity and the twin paradox is correct then Scott Kelly is a Time Lord who is both older and younger than his twin brother I think said how interstellar works can someone just explain interstellar to me I just don't understand it what we do know is that because of an effect called time dilation astronauts who spend time in space actually aged less than people on earth after six months on the International Space Station for example you'll be zero point zero zero zero seven seconds younger than your chump friends here on earth when I want to care for my skin only space travel will do the ISS because you're worth it but it's not just twins who are teaching us about aging in space we're also learning a thing or two from worms space worms researchers send worms to space for all sorts of reasons for a holiday to put them in tiny space helmets but most importantly to track how their cells genes and muscles change after traveling to space in September 2018 UK scientists sent hundreds of space worms up to the ISS to study how space flight contributes to muscle loss to learn more about long-term human space travel sorry to all those worms who are no doubt getting swole for next summer but according to tests at the ISS astronauts can lose up to 40% of their muscle mass after just six months in space and it's not just muscle loss that astronauts have to contend with there's the psychological effects of living in isolation and confined spaces with this same people for months on end there's the grim diet of freeze-dried foods and without gravity astronauts living that hashtag weightless life experience bone density loss of 1% per month if we want to live long-term in space or do three year missions to Mars we're gonna have to work on that if we don't want our astronauts to be withered husks of humanity floating around the great void of space so what does this mean for our totally real twins here in the watch this face to do why don't we check in so I lived in space and had to eat freeze-dried foods that were totally not Kido vegan and watch my bones disappear I mean yeah I'm still like young and datable but my skeleton is like a jungle gym life in space was hard you don't know how lucky you had it I was forced to live here on earth with its climate change and its nuclear fallout that I'm now old and wither that I might as well be dead so there you have it space might stop you from aging but you'll probably still die while you're up there alright that's it for this week's episode of watch this space if you enjoyed our program then make sure you click like on your remote and subscribe for more space news as it happens I'm Kylie rot I'm Claire Riley for CNET goodnight and Godspeed so my momma man maybe she's born with it maybe it's peeing in a bag on the International Space Station listen honey I didn't spend 14 years working the craps tables on Fremont Street to have to come here and listen to your space junk those crab claws from the buffet that is real vodka