A brand new examine has advised that ‘house lettuce’ will help astronauts preserve robust bone well being throughout lengthy journeys. The examine, carried out by researchers from the College of California, Davis, noticed the creation of an experimental pressure of lettuce that they are saying will help these staying in house for lengthy durations to keep up good bone well being. Staying in house on lengthy journeys is a troublesome job. A number of points associated to bodily and psychological well being are required to be addressed earlier than astronauts make a visit to house.
Astronauts endure rigorous coaching to stay in form throughout their mission deployment. Nonetheless, there are elements past their management that might have an effect on their well being. For example, lengthy publicity to microgravity quickly weakens bones. Some research say astronauts may lose about 1 p.c of the mass of some bones each month in house. And, on their return, restoration may take some time on Earth.
NASA’s well-known Twins Research states that house journey may impression gene expression that in flip may have an effect on bone well being. Astronauts do workout routines to mitigate these results.
However the brand new analysis, offered this week at a gathering of the American Chemical Society, states that ‘house lettuce’ produces a drugs that incorporates a fraction of human parathyroid hormone (PTH) peptide, which helps stimulate bone progress, amongst different features.
Injecting PTH to astronauts to deal with bone loss may not be a super long-term answer to delay their keep in house, particularly to far-off locations like Mars. However they will develop this lettuce simply and eat it repeatedly to keep up their bone well being.
“Astronauts can carry transgenic seeds, that are very tiny — you possibly can have just a few thousand seeds in a vial in regards to the dimension of your thumb — and develop them similar to common lettuce,” examine writer Somen Nandi, a chemical engineer, stated in an announcement.
Astronauts have already grown Earth-like lettuce on the Worldwide Area Station (ISS). Whereas staying in house, they dwell on processed and packaged rations comparable to fruits, nuts, chocolate, shrimp cocktails, peanut butter, and rooster, and so forth. Rising lettuce has opened prospects for different greens to be grown sometime.
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