SPACE: Could “Water Bear” DNA Help Us Survive on mars?
Will we one day combine tardigrade DNA with our cells to go to Mars? Chris Mason, a geneticist and associate professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell University in New York, has investigated the genetic effects of spaceflight and how humans might overcome these challenges to expand our species farther into the solar system. One of the (strangest) ways that we might protect future astronauts on missions to places like Mars, Mason said, might involve the DNA of tardigrades, tiny micro-animals that can survive the most extreme conditions, even the vacuum of space! Mason led one of the 10 … Read more
