It’s hard being in space. You’re isolated from friends and loved ones, your mitochondria get damaged, you get dumber, and you might just get stranded for months at a time (and get under $1,500 for it). Oh, and according to a study just published, your critically important stem cells become insomniacs, which causes you to start turning into the virus your most distant ancestors once contracted. Yes, space turns you into a zombie. But at least the view is good.
A team of scientists from the University of California San Diego published their findngs in the journal Cell Stem Cell. Essentially, they found that space was a stressful environment, which they might have learned from watching any “Alien” movie. Being in Earth orbit, with its microgravity and cosmic radiation, keeps our stem cells stressed constantly. Our stem cells normally want to sleep 80% of the time, the study’s lead author, Catriona Jamieson, told CNN. But once woken up by the revalation that something’s not right (they’re in space), they just can’t fall back to sleep. I have never related to a cell harder.
Just like you and me, the sleep-deprived stem cells become exhausted and unable to function properly. That means they can’t do their jobs, which involve reproducing other, more specialized cells like bone marrow. Without that work being done in your body, you basically just age faster. In fact, Jamieson told NBC News, your stem cells age “ten times faster in space than on the ground.”Â
Wow, that all sounds pretty bad. We haven’t even gotten to the part when the virus inside your own DNA turns you into a zombie.
Did you know you’re mostly virus?
It turns out, Agent Smith from “The Matrix” was right all along: you are a virus. Much of you, anyway. As New York’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory explains, “Eight percent of our DNA consists of remnants of ancient viruses, and another 40 percent is made up of repetitive strings of genetic letters that is also thought to have a viral origin.” In other words, germs that ancient primates contracted replicated their own genetic code into ours (which is what viruses do), and then those compromised genes got passed on to the next generation, and on and on. So almost half of you is either virus or junk code created by a virus.
A lot of degenerative diseases are thought to come from the dormant virus genes inside of you. Man, sure would be bad if some cosmic radiation activated any of that out of dormancy! Oops — the study showed that that’s exactly what happens once space stresses stem cells too much. So little bits of the flu your greatest-great-grandpa once had are waking up inside you, in space. At this point, I’d rather the Xenomorph just come eat me.
In all seriousness, your stem cells start to look preleukemic after spending time in orbit. So if humanity wants to get serious about space exploration one day, we’re going to need to contend with the health consequences of sustained exposure to an environment we were never meant for. The good news is, your stem cells do recover once they return to Earth.
Enjoy your dreams tonight!
