Boffins: Microgravity impacts cell repair systems in proteins

Cellular repair systems seem to respond to microgravity, scientists have found, leading to the hope they can better understand the effects of space flight on the human body. A research team at Oklahoma State University focused on SUMO — small proteins which attach to and modify other proteins in cells — to see how they …

[VoiceOfTruth]

Somebody did not get the memo

https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/29/scientists_boffins/

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: Somebody did not get the memo

Probably filed it in the shredder, as a last ditch protest against the new regime.

[Gene Cash]

Re: Somebody did not get the memo

There's a lot of memos that I ignore because they're stupid and wrong, like this one.

[TRT]

Re: Somebody did not get the memo

#MemoToo

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: Somebody did not get the memo

Good.

[Graham Cobb]

Re: Somebody did not get the memo

I assumed ElReg is running a non-cooperation campaign. I fully expect that the instructions have gone out to all Reg staff to make sure the word "boffin" appears somewhere in each article.

[Orv]

Re: Somebody did not get the memo

I just assume that in post-Brexit Britain the goal is to increase gender discrimination, not decrease it. Because the days when men and women lived in separate spheres were the glory days of the empire, right?

[An_Old_Dog]

Doesn't Look Like Microgravity to Me

I don't see how this NASA device (https://nlsp.nasa.gov/view/lsdapub/lsda_image/IDP-LSDA_IMAGE-0000000000001394) can "cancel", or even reduce Earth's gravity inside it considering it's being used on the surface of the Earth.

[John H Woods]

Re: Doesn't Look Like Microgravity to Me

It doesn't produce microgravity, it simulates it: earth's gravitational force is counterbalanced by by shear and centrifugal forces. And possibly Coriolis but I don't know.

The end result is that cell structures grow in a similar manner to the way they do in actual microgravity.

[I am David Jones]

Re: Doesn't Look Like Microgravity to Me

It looks like they just have a chamber rotating around a horizontal axis, eliminating the concepts of up and down or averaging out the effects of gravity. They use a vertical axis chamber to represent normal gravity. Doesn’t count as what I’d hope “simulated microgravity” to look like, but presumably it is sufficient for their purposes.

[Francis Boyle]

Knowing what is sufficient for your purposes

is the art in science.

[david1024]

So, good or bad

Missing from article is if the 50% I'd a good or bad thing.... Or is a big don't care.

[lglethal]

Re: So, good or bad

I'm guessing at this point it's a "We dont know!".

First you have to spot that there is a difference, then work out where the difference is occuring, and by how much the difference is. THEN, you can start working out if that's good or bad.

I'd take the Yeast and test if it can still make beer. If not, then clearly it's a bad thing. Because in the future we are definitely going to need beer in space!

[Orv]

Re: So, good or bad

We may not know yet, but changes in cellular metabolism are rarely good for you. It's a system tuned by millions of years of evolution.

[Version 1.0]

Water helps us make soup

It's a good suggestive idea although I feel we need to work on the concept a lot more. This might explain why we see evidence of water on Mars and suspect water on Venus but it seems less universal on other planets. The big deal here is that water is a key molecule that makes life possible ... so might this slightly reduce the probability of life throughout the Universe? I'm confident that life exists throughout the universe but there's not much in deserts. I believe that water everywhere could result in the creation life although the most common forms of life are plants and fish, even on the Earth.

I often post "updated" Brendan Behan quotes (LOL) so this make me think, "If it was raining soup, NASA would go out with forks." because life in the universe results in soup with water involved.