Research: Flies on ISS benefited greatly from simulated gravity
Scientists have found that providing fruitflies 1g of artificial gravity on ISS using a centrifuge acted to reduce the medical changes that weightlessness produces.
In this study, scientists sent flies to the space station on a month-long mission in a newly developed piece of hardware called the Multi-use Variable-gravity Platform (MVP), capable of housing flies at different gravity levels. The flies in this hardware had access to fresh food as they lived and reproduced. By using distinct compartments, the MVP allowed for different generations of flies to be separated. On the space station, one group of fruit flies experienced microgravity similar to their human counterparts. Another group was exposed to artificial gravity by simulating Earth’s gravity on the space station using a centrifuge – an instrument that spins to simulate gravity. While on the space station, cameras in the hardware recorded behavior of these “flyonauts”. At different points in time, some of the flies were frozen and returned to Earth to study their gene expression.
…More in-depth analysis on the ground immediately post-flight revealed neurological changes in flies exposed to microgravity. As the flies acclimated to being back on Earth after their journey, the flies that experienced artificial gravity in space aged differently. They faced similar but less severe challenges to the flies that were in microgravity.
You can read the paper here.
To some extent, this study tells us nothing. We already know from a half century of research that zero gravity causes negative physical changes in both fruit flies and humans. What we really need to know is the lowest level of artificial gravity that would be beneficial. It is much easier to engine a spacecraft to produce 0.1g of artificial gravity than 1g. Even 0.5g would ease the engineering problem. The problem is that we do not yet know the right number.
It is a shame the scientists didn’t subject some flies to 0.5g, just to find out if that level of artificial gravity worked to provide benefits.
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Scientists have found that providing fruitflies 1g of artificial gravity on ISS using a centrifuge acted to reduce the medical changes that weightlessness produces.
In this study, scientists sent flies to the space station on a month-long mission in a newly developed piece of hardware called the Multi-use Variable-gravity Platform (MVP), capable of housing flies at different gravity levels. The flies in this hardware had access to fresh food as they lived and reproduced. By using distinct compartments, the MVP allowed for different generations of flies to be separated. On the space station, one group of fruit flies experienced microgravity similar to their human counterparts. Another group was exposed to artificial gravity by simulating Earth’s gravity on the space station using a centrifuge – an instrument that spins to simulate gravity. While on the space station, cameras in the hardware recorded behavior of these “flyonauts”. At different points in time, some of the flies were frozen and returned to Earth to study their gene expression.
…More in-depth analysis on the ground immediately post-flight revealed neurological changes in flies exposed to microgravity. As the flies acclimated to being back on Earth after their journey, the flies that experienced artificial gravity in space aged differently. They faced similar but less severe challenges to the flies that were in microgravity.
You can read the paper here.
To some extent, this study tells us nothing. We already know from a half century of research that zero gravity causes negative physical changes in both fruit flies and humans. What we really need to know is the lowest level of artificial gravity that would be beneficial. It is much easier to engine a spacecraft to produce 0.1g of artificial gravity than 1g. Even 0.5g would ease the engineering problem. The problem is that we do not yet know the right number.
It is a shame the scientists didn’t subject some flies to 0.5g, just to find out if that level of artificial gravity worked to provide benefits.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
“Time flies like an arrow, Fruitflies like a banana” Ducking and running for my life
… a centrifuge – an instrument that spins to simulate gravity.
One might note that according to Einstein’s general theory of relativity — the modern theory of gravity, heavily backed by more than a century of observations and experiments — according to relativity, “gravity” from a spinning centrifuge, or a rotating merry-go-round, or from linear acceleration for that matter, isn’t just “simulating” gravity. Any kind of acceleration produces real, live gravity.
So you’re telling me that fruit flies that weren’t weightless had less problems from weightlessness than those that were weightless. I don’t believe it.
“Fruit flies are the ideal organism for this kind of research due to their similarities to humans”. Riiighht.
Clowns. Clowns, they’re everywhere. It’s clown world and not funny anymore.
We used Drosophila Melanogaster a lot in genetics experiments to illustrate our classroom lessons in bio class. They’re cheap, reproduce quickly and come in various mutations so are ideal for the purpose.
“Drosophila melanogaster is a species of fly (the taxonomic order Diptera) in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the “vinegar fly” or “pomace fly”.[a][4] Starting with Charles W. Woodworth’s 1901 proposal of the use of this species as a model organism,[5][6] D. melanogaster continues to be widely used for biological research in genetics, physiology, microbial pathogenesis, and life history evolution. As of 2017, five Nobel Prizes have been awarded to drosophilists for their work using the insect.[7][8]
D. melanogaster is typically used in research owing to its rapid life cycle, relatively simple genetics with only four pairs of chromosomes, and large number of offspring per generation”
“Similarity to humans
A March 2000 study by National Human Genome Research Institute comparing the fruit fly and human genome estimated that about 60% of genes are conserved between the two species. About 75% of known human disease genes have a recognizable match in the genome of fruit flies, and 50% of fly protein sequences have mammalian homologs. An online database called Homophila is available to search for human disease gene homologues in flies and vice versa.
Drosophila is being used as a genetic model for several human diseases including the neurodegenerative disorders Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, spinocerebellar ataxia and Alzheimer’s disease. The fly is also being used to study mechanisms underlying aging and oxidative stress, immunity, diabetes, and cancer, as well as drug abuse.”
So not so outlandish
So, space hamster wheels are a real ‘thing”?
Hamsters everywhere now don’t have to run.
That creates its own problems.
It’s called a “variable-gravity platform” so maybe this is only the beginning, establishing the baseline, with future experiments adding in the intermediate values.
Michael McNeil, you may be right—I don’t have the chops to disagree—but there are practical differences for organisms in a rotating habitat vs planetary gravity, such as Coriolis effect, that get worse with decreasing radius and increasing rate of rotation. It’s a real shame the “microgravity mafia” has ruled the NASA roost all this time, so in 2022 only the most rudimentary AG experiments are being done. At this rate, SpaceX will provide practical low-gravity results on the Moon and Mars well before any human-scale orbital facility could be designed and fielded.
(BTW at the otherwise excellent nasaspaceflight.com forums, you can’t even use that phrase, “microgravity mafia.” If you do, their software will automatically replace that text with something along the lines of “a string of words I used because I’m too stupid to think of something rational to say.”)
Wheel stations due to their shape can better generate their own magnetospheres I would think. Lead-filled hub shelter.
I cannot remember who it was, maybe Gary Hudson, who was pushing that the real next major expirement in space needs to be a variable gravity facility on a scale large enough for humans.
So far we have some data on 0g. Tons on 1g. Barely minimal on 1/6g (how long was Apollo on the moon total?). We need to figure out what the right number is between 0 and 1.
geoffc: In Leaving Earth I describe one experiment by the Russians in the Soviet era that tested the effects of a 0.1g gravity on plants. I am writing totally from memory, so I could have some details wrong. However, I do remember from my research that the experiment found significant benefits for even a tiny amount of artificial gravity.
Until this fly experiment, I think that was the only orbital experiment that used a centrifuge to test the effects of gravity. That this new experiment did it at 1g however really ticks me off, as we know what the effects of 1g are.
Without solving this one of two essential problems human beings may not be able to stay in space for more than 1 to possibly 2 (?) years without major health consequences or death. (I am not a doctor :)
A trip to Mars? Never happen, not in my opinion. A one-way trip at best. Radiation of course being the second issue.
Solve them and go wherever you want whenever you want for as long as you want.
The human body has its limitations.
Robert Zimmerman,
You wrote: “That this new experiment did it at 1g however really ticks me off, as we know what the effects of 1g are.”
However, in your post you included this from the article:
This suggests that the centrifuge may have caused some difficulties that its fly population needed to overcome.
The Coriolis effect may not be the major source of problems but the human inner ear vestibular balance system may be worrisome — I don’t know whether the fruitfully has a similar balance system. We already know that rotating faster than 4 RPM can give some or many people problems with the vestibular system, such as dizziness and nausea, so this is a limiting factor in our ability to provide an amount of artificial gravity through rotation of the spacecraft.
The article also suggests that this research paves the way for future studies:
NASA has proposed going to Mars in the 2030s decade, and the thought has been to use a large transport spacecraft with a rotating section, as seen in the movie The Martian, yet NASA still has done no research on making such a rotating section, how much gravity will be needed, and what effects this will have on humans in addition to the freefall effects that we have studied for the past half century. The middle one, Robert, is the one you have been concerned about, and I agree, if we are to try rotation for artificial gravity, we should figure out how much gravity we need and the effects of the rotation on the human body and psyche. Since the 1950s, and the von Braun-Disney space station concept, we have assumed that space stations would spin, such as the one in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Instead of being bold about exploring the space environment, we have been timid for the past half century. Skylab was a kluge; its replacement, the ISS, was whittled down from its original not-so-bold design; and the Space Shuttle, which was intended to make going to space commonplace and inexpensive, failed its goals spectacularly. (The Shuttle’s replacement, SLS, is a regression to Apollo methods but with the drawback of higher cost and lower mission rate. Congress is forcing NASA into the wrong direction. NASA may still be adrift.)
SpaceX may have the right idea. Go boldly to Mars and figure out the solutions to the problems as they discover what these actually are, not what we thing they may be. Plus rapid development, rather than all this timid pussyfooting around.
“All these grand ideas, potential missions, and dreams of a long-term human presence in space depend on one thing: that our feeble human bodies can handle it. But the truth is, no one knows what happens to a body when it spends more than a year in space, or more than a year living on the surface of the moon.”
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/5/14/18306893/apollo-50-nasa-spaceflight-human-body-twin-study
The human body has its natural limitations, humans must have gravity. Not to mention the radiation problem. You may go to Mars, but you’re probably not coming home, and you’re probably not living that long once you get there.
The best solution? Pills? Human genetic manipulation? Spinning spaceships? All of the above?
Find a way to manipulate gravity and turn it on and off? Now that is one tall Star Trek order.
Wayne, any suggestions?
Seems that they could engineer the centrifuge to have compartments along the radius. That way they could test various levels of gravity in one swell foop.
Andi–
see here:
Centrifugation: Relative Centrifugal Force vs Revolutions Per Minute.
Dr. Ahmath Medicine (2020)
https://youtu.be/tOiT8cj14tY
22:52
geoffc, it was Gary Hudson, through the Space Studies Institute.
It’s called the Equivalence Principle in general relativity — and stands really at relativity’s very core. According to Einsteinian relativity, inertia (that is, acceleration) and gravity are actually one and the same thing fundamentally (which is why the two have mysteriously behaved alike — they are alike). This is one of the two fundamental conceptual unifications that Einstein accomplished with relativity — the other being the equating of matter and energy.
Moreover, “gravity” (resulting from acceleration) arrives in a variety of forms. Rotation (employing a smaller radius) is accompanied “coriolis force” (which isn’t really a “force” at all, unless one regards the rotating object as being stationary — similar to gravity itself, which also isn’t a force in the “right” reference frame) — plus things thrown out by rotation diverge in the pathway they follow, whereas falling toward a gravitating body converges — while linear acceleration’s “gravity” neither converges nor diverges.
Jeff Wright noted: “Wheel stations due to their shape can better generate their own magnetospheres I would think. ”
That is a very interesting idea for solar wind/storm mitigation, and I don’t think I’ve seen the idea in sci-fi. Would like to see a reference if someone has one.