
Nasa Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-long human spaceflight - miobrien
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6436/eaau8650
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kissickas
> Most notably, cognitive speed decreased for all tests except for the DSST,
> and accuracy decreased for all domains except for spatial orientation
> postflight. TW’s cognitive efficiency (a combination of speed and accuracy
> across cognitive domains) was similar pre- and inflight relative to HR but
> was significantly lower postflight (P = 0.0016, Student’s t test). This
> postflight decline in cognitive performance persisted up to 6 months
> postflight in both speed and accuracy domains (Fig. 10C).

This is terrifying to me. I hadn't heard of spaceflight (or the return from
it) affecting cognitive function before, but they don't seem to be making it a
major issue here - even after it persisted six months later. Does anyone have
older sources showing the same thing? I would especially be interested in
studies showing the effect over multiple flights and returns to Earth.

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scottie_m
It’s not a study, but it’s been hypothesized that radiation and cosmic rays
could cause lasting damage of just this sort through particle showers within
the brain. Truthfully though there is very little in the way of studies for
the simple fact that it’s hard to set one up for astronauts. Given how
radically different the environment in space is compared to Earth though, I’m
not finding this surprising. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just the tip of a
very dangerous iceberg too, and it turns out that it takes a lot of time and
sacrifice to get us to live and thrive somewhere other than Earth’s surface.

~~~
fumar
We have a small sample size of humans who have been exposed to space. I wonder
what human mutations will be more preferable for space travel. Physical
fitness is part of the equation but so is genetic-space compatibility.

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scottie_m
Agreed. Genentic engineering will probably be helpful, but first we do as you
say, have to know what to engineer for. Then of course we’ll have a kind of
speciation event and we’ll risk having a kind of genetic apartheid based on
people who work in space vs. planetside. It could get sci-fi dystopia levels
of ugly if we don’t work to prevent those outcomes.

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wongarsu
We already limit astronauts and many other professions based on genetic
properties: height, tollerance to high g-forces, eyesight etc. Even things
used as health indicators like resting blood pressure are influenced to a
significant degree by genetics.

I think we will survive adding a few more genetic properties to the job
requirements, especially since jobs on planets will vastly outnumber jobs in
outer space for the forseeable future.

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baxtr
Interesting that telomere length increased by 14% during flight! And, it can’t
be related to a healthy lifestyle since they got shorter within 48hrs back on
earth?

 _Notably, telomere length shortened rapidly upon TW’s return to Earth, within
~48 hours [FD340 ambient return to R+0 (R+ days post return); fig. S6B] and
stabilized to near preflight averages within months._

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stcredzero
I am not a doctor, but my understanding is that increasing telomere length
could contribute to the severity of malignant tumors.

~~~
z3t4
or increase life length!? Space hypersleep might become a thing after all.

~~~
stcredzero
It's a double edged sword. Increased telomere length will not only make it
easier for your normal cells to divide more, it makes it easier for cancer
cells to divide more. It's actually an anti-cancer adaptation for some mammals
to turn off their telomere repair.

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mxwsn
I'm impressed by the paper's 16 co-first authors and 13 co-last corresponding
authors. While something like this might be more routine in a field like
physics, it's a good look for biology and I hope the trend of sharing credit
continues.

~~~
mruts
I got coauthored for formatting my coworker’s paper with LateX in the field of
computational biology. So don’t get too excited.

~~~
dcdanko
The standards for authorship in this study were pretty strict. Something like
~2 supplementary figures just for a co-authorship.

Source: I'm in one of the labs on this paper (but not one of the authors)

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RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u
> [S]patial orientation and motor praxis accuracy increased...cognitive speed
> decreased.

It's too bad they didn't measure if TW's become empathic vs. HR. I guess we'll
never know how well he's at piloting giant robots.

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mirimir
It's interesting that there's no mention of sperm count.

I mean, given that the US government funded studies where state prisoners in
Oregon and Washington sat on X-ray machines. After tracking the time course of
sperm-count recovery, prisoners' testicles were typically removed. This was
back in the 60s, in support of the space program.

[https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/achre/commeet/meet8/...](https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/achre/commeet/meet8/brief8/tab_e/br8e2.html)

