Space Travel and the Mystery of Accelerated Mutations in Mice

Have you ever wondered what happens to mice when they go on a long space trip? Scientists found out that staying on the International Space Station (ISS) for 37 days can cause some weird things to happen to their genes. They looked at the mice's RNA, which is like a blueprint for making proteins, and found something surprising. The mice had a lot of changes, or mutations, in their genes. These changes happened mostly in parts of the genome that are specific to certain tissues, and they involved a lot of guanine bases turning into other types of bases. Why did this happen? The scientists think it might be because of something called reactive oxygen species, or ROS. These are like tiny, unstable molecules that can damage cells. The ISS has higher levels of carbon dioxide and ROS, and these might be causing the mutations. The mutations happened really fast, and there were more of them than you would expect from radiation alone. Interestingly, some of these mutated genes are the same ones that are often changed in human cancers. So, studying how space travel affects mice could help us understand how cancer starts in people. It might also tell us something about how metabolic processes, which are like the body's way of making energy, might play a role in cancer. But why should we care about this on Earth? Well, if metabolic processes can cause genetic instability, it might be important for understanding not just cancer, but other diseases too. So, the ISS isn't just a cool place for astronauts to live; it's also a unique lab for studying how our bodies work.