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Worms do duty in space

───   08:07 Sat, 07 Apr 2018

Worms do duty in space | News Article

London - Thousands of baby worms will be sent into space later this year to help a study into muscle loss in older people.


BBC reports that scientists at the University of Exeter in Devon say nematodes are being used because they have a similar muscle structure to humans.

Astronauts lose about 40% of muscle mass after 180 days while aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

It's hoped the research could help people with conditions including muscular dystrophy and diabetes.

The worms - a nematode species called Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) - will blast off in a rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, on 29 November and travel 402km to the ISS.

They are useful to scientists studying long-term changes in human physiology because they suffer from muscle loss under many of the same conditions that people do.

BBC

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