Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Bugs in space raise hopes of cultivating crops on Mars
CROPS could be grown on Mars to sustain humans, researchers claim.
Fungi, yeast and soil bugs have been found to be hardy enough to survive the seven-month journey.
It could pave the way for a lifesupport system to be set up for a human colony like that in 2015 film The Martian, starring Matt Damon.
In a recent experiment, bacteria was launched 24 miles into Earth’s stratosphere to an area just above the ozone layer with conditions similar to Mars – with temperatures of about -37C, little oxygen and blasted by the sun’s UV radiation.
Lead author Marta Filipa Cortesao, of the German Aerospace Centre in Cologne, said: “Some microbes, in particular spores from the black mould fungus, were able to survive the trip, even when exposed to very high UV radiation.”
It is a boost for manned trips, which NASA hopes will start by 2035. But it also raises fears about bugs hitching a ride on spacecraft potentially making astronauts sick.
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BEHIND Her Eyes is a supernatural psychological thriller created by Steve Lightfoot, based on the 2017 novel by Sarah Pinborough.
Single mum Louise, played by
Simona Brown, left, has a parttime job in a psychiatrist’s office and begins an affair with her boss, played by Tom Bateman.
She strikes up an unlikely friendship with his wife Adele, played by Eve Hewson. Louise is caught in a dangerous web of secrets in a world where nothing is quite what it seems.
There are six episodes, all around 50 minutes long.