The International Space Station is preparing to host an atypical tenant, ‘blob’, an unclassifiable organism that will fascinate biologists, who will enter orbit to be used in a learning experiment led by astronaut French Thomas Bisquet.
From Earth, several hundred students between the ages of 8 and 17 will reproduce the experience starting next fall with this strange organism, which is neither an animal, nor a plant, nor a mushroom. Students will be mentored by the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) in cooperation with the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).
The “Viscous liquid”, named Physarum polycephalumIt consists of one cell and several nuclei. It looks like a thin yellow mass, which has neither a mouth, nor legs, nor a brain. Yet it eats, grows, moves (very slowly) and has amazing learning abilities.
Its nuclei can divide at will and an organism can go into a state of dormancy (without dying) by dehydration. In this case, called “sclerotia,” several pieces of “blob” will enter space, aboard an International Space Station supply cargo ship.
When the astronauts rehydrate them, in September, four sauces about 0.5 cm long, 400 km from Earth, will wake up in Petri dishes, and they will comply with two protocols: one will test the position of “blobs” when they are deprived of food and the other will provide food for the lucky ones (oat flakes) .
“third dimension?”
The goal is to observe the effects of weightlessness on that body. “Today, no one knows what behavior it will be like [situación de] Microgravity: In which direction will it move, if it will take the third dimension upward or indirectly…”asked Pierre Ferrand, professor of life and earth sciences at CNES, one of the project’s architects.
“I’m curious to see if it will develop into stilts”“Points” specialist Audrey Dsoutour, director of research at the CNRS’ Center for Research in Animal Cognition, in Toulouse, southern France.
On Earth, thousands of cut “blob” samples of the same strain (LU352) as their space congeners, will be distributed to 4,500 schools, lyceums, and high schools in France.
More than 350,000 students will ‘touch the ‘dot’said Kristen Koresher, the space agency’s head of educational projects.
Between the end of August and the beginning of September, teachers will receive a group with between 3 and 5 sclerotia and a tutorial to carry out the experiment.
When Thomas Pesquet wets “blobs” in space, students will do the same in class. After that, several observational sessions will be held to compare the behavior of samples taken from Earth with those sent to space.
Since the “dot” calls into question some scientific theories, it is expected to lead to many discussions in class. “For example, in cell theory, which is one of the oldest cell theory, it is said that each cell divides into two cells. With the ‘point’, this does not work, because it is one cell that grows without dividing,” says Pierre Ferrand.
Another oddity: “While most organisms use two genders, the ‘dot’ is over 720! It is a ‘drawer’ object that tells us that life is made up of many original elements”The teacher adds.
The “point” appeared on Earth more than 500 million years ago, before animals. For a long time it was considered a fungus, but then it was removed from that kingdom and since the 1990s it has become part of a subclass of amoebas to which amoebae belong.
With information from Agence France-Presse.
It may interest you:
What about honey in space? The astronaut shows how to behave in zero gravity
After a colonoscopy, a 59-year-old man discovered that a beetle lived in his intestines
It’s a scientist, he hasn’t showered for 5 years and he explains why we shouldn’t do it more often
“Beeraholic. Friend of animals everywhere. Evil web scholar. Zombie maven.”
More Stories
This atomic clock is ridiculously and shockingly accurate. Plus, it's built like a tank
The secret of the product that makes clothes whiter
What would the Lunar Cruiser, the pressurized truck NASA commissioned for use on the Moon, look like?