Long space journeys could wreck your eyeballs... and brain

Fresh off the news that microgravity screws us up on a cellular level comes word that it also damages our eyes and brain. Researchers from the University of Texas, Wyle Integrated Science and Engineering, and NASA's Department of Space Medicine performed MRIs on 27 astronauts who had spent an average of 108 days in… » 3/16/12 7:40am 3/16/12 7:40am

Microgravity screws us up at a cellular level

One of the great fears of the early space race was what effect microgravity would have on human explorers — and while we know it won't instantly die when leaving the atmosphere, there's still a lot we don't know about the long term effects of low gravity. If we ever want to set up a long-term space settlement, it'd be… » 2/02/12 3:00pm 2/02/12 3:00pm

Fruit flies become slightly superpowered in zero gravity

Fruit flies were the very first animals we sent into space, way back in 1947 — yet we're still not done analyzing what happens to them in microgravity. We've known for a while that when in "zero-gravity," flies walk more quickly than they do planetside. The only problem is that we don't know if this is due to the… » 1/04/12 10:53am 1/04/12 10:53am