Month: July 2022

Featuring image: Cress can grow nearly everywhere, but can it also survive on the Moon? Bastet78, Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Paper: Plants grown in Apollo lunar regolith present stress-associated transcriptomes that inform prospects for lunar exploration

Authors: A.-L. Paul, S. M. Elardo and R. Ferl

Plants surround us everywhere and dominate our planet. We feed from them, we build our homes from them and we need them as a source for oxygen. We couldn’t imagine a world without them. But can we take them with us, when we visit other worlds?

In space science, plants have already played an important role. They are often used as model organisms for experiments and in future space missions they might even be used as important additions to the astronauts’ food and life supply. Thus, they already made their way up to the International Space Station. Now for the first time, Paul and colleagues have tried to grow plants in original lunar soil, finding that we may be able to take our green companions with us to the Moon.

Continue reading “Dreaming of a green Moon – farming lunar fields”

Featured Image: A salmon in a stream on the Oregon coast. Photo credit: Conrad Gowell

Paper: Thiaminase activity of gastrointestinal contents of salmon and herring from the Baltic Sea

Authors: S. Wistbacka, A. Heinonen, and G. Bylund

Flintstones vitamins are generally marketed for children, but should fish be taking them too? Thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency in fish, especially species of salmon, is a widespread issue with serious implications, as this vitamin is an integral compound required by virtually all living organisms. Vitamin B1 deficiency can lead to an array of negative health outcomes for salmon, which collectively manifest as the condition known as thiamine deficiency complex. This condition inhibits many salmon and other anadromous fish (those that migrate from the oceans to rivers to spawn) from spawning, posing a major problem for their long-term survival.  

Continue reading “A Historical Link Between Thiamine Deficiency in Salmon and the Presence of Thiaminase in their Prey”