Space travel is not for the weak. Astronauts endure motion sickness, disorientation, cardiovascular stress—and that’s before they even reach orbit. Luckily, the bacteria that lives inside us is far more resilient. A new study shows that a gut bacteria essential for human health can survive the stress of being launched into space aboard a rocket, the microgravity environment, and reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

A group of scientists in Australia launched spores of Bacillus subtilis, a gram-positive bacteria that lives in our intestinal tracts, to the edge of space to see how the microbes fared. Upon examination after the bacteria had returned to Earth, the scientists found the microbes had experienced no change in their ability to grow and that their structure remained intact.

The findin

See Full Page