Bugs in space

For the first time, scientists have paid attention to microbes (which are related to bugs, but not as much as humans are) IN SPACE!

This article is worth reading for a couple of reasons.

- the future of astronauts depends on it. Or so some would have you believe. Essentially they think that microbes may be more deadly in space. They figured this out by taking salmonella on a shuttle, then infecting mice on earth and finding they died more than controls. What I really would have liked to see is mice in space being infected. After all, it's astronauts in space they're worried about, not astronauts on earth.
- it mentions the word panspermia. This is a mildly funny word. But it's used with deadly seriousness, for famed panspermioso Chandra Wickramasinghe believes the experiment suggests bacteria are evolved for space travel

There they are. The couple of reasons, laid out for you in the English language. My next article will be about the shock revelation that words that are used more often take longer to morph into other words than words that are rarely used. Alas, this probably means panspermiosi will have changed by its second usage. In the same story, there's research about how more and more English words end in 'ed' in the past tense, even though they used to not! This process is called regularisation, and it's happening as we speak. What else is being regularised? Our minds? Our media? Our owls? The answer is all around us.

Finally, I was pleased to see that research I covered in exciting depth won an Ig Nobel prize. I am prepared to wager a doubloon that this research, about the anti-jetlag effects of viagra (and cialis walium? Further tests required) in hamsters, becomes the first to claim the Ig Nobel / Nobel Prize sweep. You heard it first here, folks.