Bacteria in Space. Deadly?

now we all know that bacteria can survive in space. when astronauts first went the the moon they left behind bacteria that were found alive on their next visit. and that bacteria like other germs mutates according to its environments as in space except that space transforms them into deadlier bacteria that our antibiotics are unable to protect s from it.

space.newscientist.com...]http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12683-space-creates-mutant-s uperbugs.html


www.newscientist.com...]http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19526 234.600-mutant-space-bugs-a-threat-to-astronauts.html

so these space bugs aren't inherently born in space or from another world right? they all are earthly habitants that found their way to space, either through a human shuttle or a meteoroid that passes by collecting these beings and transporting them elsewhere which might very well be an Exogenesis from earth giving life to other planets. is this in any way possible and could their be bacteria already in space before humans developed as they could be the seeds that filtered earth. And isn't there anyone scared about such bacteria infiltrating earth and that some of our diseases could be credited to these things say as that 'Superbug'.





[edit on 10-11-2007 by DuneKnight]

Originally posted by DuneKnight
And isn't there anyone scared about such bacteria infiltrating earth and that some of our diseases could be credited to these things say as that 'Superbug'.

It's possible that someday a space bacteria could enter into our atmosphere and wipe out a huge percentage of the life here. And it may have already happened numerous times in the past. It's a recognized danger and a threat, but there isn't a whole lot we can do about it. We can't build a shield against this stuff, because it could ride in slowly on a little snowy meteorite we couldn't even detect and drift down happy and healthy from the upper atmosphere. So we're doomed.

On the other hand, that's why we have an very sophisticated immune system and skin and various other good ways to protect ourselves against infection. Our immune system is so good that every time it fights of an infection it automatically protects itself against that same infection.

So not only does this superbug have to survive the rigors of space, re-entry, and manage to get close enough to us to infect us, it then has to go head-to-head with our own tough, flexible immune systems. The odds against it doing a lot of damage after that are pretty small, though it's not impossible.

It's nothing to worry about though, because we can't do anything more about it than we already do with ordinary diseases. Watch for outbreaks, quarantine, develop better antibiotics, etc. Doesn't matter if it comes from space, a mutation from the rainforest, or a secret government lab. We can only do what we can do.

Now, I have no doubt that bacteria was left behind by the Apollo astronauts, but I do have to call into question your claim that it was found by later missions. The astronauts landed in a pretty wide area of space, and never actually went to where a previous mission had landed.

To answer your question, the bacteria in the articles, Salmonella, is from Earth and not derived from space. In fact, it's a fairly common bacteria, but more often than not just leads to severe cases of food poisoning in humans. The easiest way I can think of to contract it is to smear a raw chicken breast on your counter and then lick that spot clean. Or maybe to devour a carton of eggs raw. I highly recommend not attempting either method, though.

I digress. The bacteria mutates for a few reasons, such as the microgravity environment and the extra dosage of radiation. The mutated bacteria poses a greater threat to men and women and space than those on Earth. Studies have lead to the concern that lengthened times in microgravity can lead to a diminished immune system.

Now, these studies are crucial to our own medical research on Earth. This is mainly because bacteria are constantly winning the battle to mutate and overcome our antibiotics. It is sadly a losing war that we are waging. It would only be a matter of time before the Salmonella virus mutated like this on its own here on Earth. It is truly outstanding that they identified the controlling protein, as now we can better understand a future threat.

If we can identify this same controlling protein in other, more dangerous bacteria it will surely lead to better antibodies, at least for a little while. Besides, they were doing the test with a normally less-than-lethal bacteria and not something like e. coli.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
Now, I have no doubt that bacteria was left behind by the Apollo astronauts, but I do have to call into question your claim that it was found by later missions. The astronauts landed in a pretty wide area of space, and never actually went to where a previous mission had landed.

I forget which Apollo mission retreived samples from a previous Surveyor craft, but it was found that bacteria missed in the initial "sterilization" of the Surveyor craft was freeze-dried in space and revived later on Earth by adding a little water and warmth. I seem to recall that several Skylab tests also confirmed bacteria's ability to survive in space. That stuff is tough. Viruses, since they're more like little robots than living things, would be even tougher.

My favorite nutty theory of the moment is that a comet bashed into Earth around 13,000 years ago, ending the last Ice Age, and submerging the young civilization of Atlantis, which was located on a large island where the Azores are now. It also created the Carolina Bays, a series of shallow marshy craters that happen to be... and here's the good part... the only known source of the carnivorous Venus Flytrap, which has no relative plant species. Did the Venus Flytrap come from space? Hmmm...

Ah, yeah, I had forgotten about that claim. You're thinking of Apollo 12's visit to the Surveyor 3 craft to get the camera back. Supposedly, the Streptococcus mitis bacteria (I had to look that one up), was found inside the camera body. This is just a myth, and today is discredited by NASA, but at the time it was cause for some wide publicity.

This was discounted as a myth for a few reasons, namely that the bacteria cannot survive out of the human mouth for an extended period of time in even a terrestrial environment and that the camera could very easily have been contaminated by the Apollo 12 astronauts themselves.

As for the comet idea you propose in the second half of your previous post, that too is highly unlikely. While I do not know what the current proposal for the formation of the Carolina Bays is, I do know that the evidence for an impact is lacking. The bedrock below the ground is neither disturbed nor cracked, as it is with other impact sites. The Carolina Bays extend outside of Carolina, from Delaware to Florida, and the formation of those sites is consistent. Had this been during the ice age, the northern parts would have been covered by an ice sheet, which had an impact occurred, left an identifiable type of crater, as other impacts had during the last ice age.

I don't know much about the Venus Fly Trap, other than my friend in high school had one and we would feed it flies. Aside from that, I do know that it only thrives in nitrogen poor environments and in the sort of climate that one finds in South Carolina. How that means it came from an impact, I don't know. There are thousands of localized species of plants on this planet. Look at the rainforests, for example. I'm sure there are some there that have found their own unique branch of evolution and have no living relative plant species.

Finally, your source is an interesting read, with some well stated points... But did you happen to glance at the publication date? April, 1975. And the authors' sources? Well, a few even predate 1900. A fair share of them date to the 1930s and 40s, when the, now discredited, cometary impact hypothesis was a more prominent one.

these bugs might of been picked up from other planets and comets could contain outerworldly bugs, if fact the american government found acomet with microorganisms on it ages ago and yes they could be deadly as we would have no immunity to them

Okay, rule #1: Read The Andromeda Strain by Micheal Crichton. Yes, it's fiction, but danged if it ain't a good one! Oh and don't watch the movie first. Later, if at all.

Now, for a alternate view. I'm wondering how in the world something becomes impervious to anitbiotics by mutating in space. We've already proven that super bacteria evolves to that, not by the absense of antibiotics but rather by surviving a watered down version of it several times over the course of a few generations. IF Bacteria is indeed the product of evolution in space, then antibiotics are proof of the fact that evolution in space is NOT the bulletproof vest some think it is.

What worries me more is the possiblity of viruses which evolve in space. Such is one theory circulating about the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1915.

Unlike antibiotics and antibacterials, vaccines are made to order for a specific virus, and become useless if the virus survives to evolve even during treatment of the same patient.

Now, if cmdrkeenkid is right, the people who DO have to worry are those men and women we send to colonize the moon, who lose their immunity defenses, and finally have the misfortune to track this stuff into the moon base on their boots. Wait a minute...where'd they leave this bacteria again?

Sorry, just one more thing to lose sleep over.



[edit on 11-11-2007 by Toelint]

Water Bears are capable of surviving in space. While not bacteria or a virus, it still makes for an interesting read. What it can survive is amazing.

greenviro.blogspot.com...

Extreme cold (at -272 degrees Celsius for a couple of minutes, or at -200 degrees Celsius for days on end)
Extreme heat (being heated to 181 degrees Celsius for a couple of minutes)
Extreme radiation (easily surviving 5,700 grays of radiation. A gray is about as much radiation as 5,000 chest x-rays. 10-20 grays can easily kill a human and most animals.)
Extreme dehydration (A tardigrade can survive for a decade with no water)
In a vacuum (A water bear can survive in space!)

Maybe something similar to this could seed planets.

Well I imagine if bacteria can survive like that, then Mars is probably full of life in it's caves and underground areas. It makes me wonder what we'll find when man does get there and goes searching for this stuff? And I wonder what the dangers are of bringing it back with them to earth?

Ok I know that astronauts go through severe health checking, but has there been evidence of astronauts being responsible for infections because they harbored bacteria from space.

I never heard of astronauts or people who go to space ever get sick in space, i thought a good reason to go to space was to runaway from all that virus/bacteria stuff, am i wrong to think so. Can AIDS/Ebola come from space

[edit on 12-11-2007 by DuneKnight]

Very interesting discussion, and I have just a few things to add.

If otherworldly bacteria were to survive the transport to Earth their survival rate would depend on a number of different factors. To establish an infection in humans or in another species they would have to be morphologically and genetically similar to planetary bacteria to infect the host. Bacteria are prokaryotic organisms that reproduce through the process of binary fission, and for them do complete this process they must first bind to the host cell. On the most basic level, all known bacteria do this by attaching to eukaryotic cells with an adhesin factor that binds to specific carbohydrate or peptide residue receptors on the cellular surface. A couple of things can be taken from this fact:

1. They are species specific. That is, because receptors on the cells surfaces are inheritantly genetically different across multiple organisms it is only possible for the bacteria to infect organisms which carry those specific receptors. It is very easy to see this when we actually look at a specific bacteria (for the interest of this point I will use a bacteria called Treponema pallidum because it is fairly common) with which to compare. Treponema pallidum has only three cell related adhesins known as p1-p3, and these can only bind to cells that carry specific amino acid sequences on their Mucosal Epithelium receptors known as Arg, Gly, Asp, or Ser fibronectins. What this means is that bacteria such as Terponema pallidum can only infect cells which carry those aforementioned receptors and in the case of this bacterium, which causes Syphilis, it only infects humans.

2. The host species cannot be genetically immune to the pathogen.

3. Some bacterium only favor certain cells even though they may be genetically similar to others. This is why some intestinal flora do not invade the stomach, etc.

Another factor to consider in establishing a bacterial infection would be how the pathogen invades the host. Again, in comparison to the attachment factors this wholly depends on compatibility with the host. For instance, one bacteria might catalyze with a certain protein such as ADP-ribosylation to prohibit DNA repair and control the cells own lifecycle, while yet another might inactivate the elongation factors which inhibit translation during protein synthesis and in effect control the cell in a different manner. Taking this into account, although I wouldn't say it's wholly impossible, it would be very difficult for an otherworldly bacterium to produce even a minute fraction of the mechanisms which I listed above.

On the other hand we also have viruses, which display a completely different set of criteria, but are not unlike bacteria in some ways. Namely, viruses are also oftentimes species specific in that the replication of the virus is completely dependant on the host species. RNA based viruses for example (such as Influenza, HIV, Hep C, etc.), which replicate at astonishing rates, display a number of different factors which coincides with their infection process. Here on Earth viruses come in both positive-sense and negative-sense meaning that the host will have to have a means by which to recognize the virus. For positive-sense viruses their genome is integrated as if it were cellular mRNA, which produces a polymerase enzyme called Replicase that both the host and the virus modify for replication. In the case of a virus like HIV-1 we see that it uses gp-120 glycoproteins on the viral surface to attach to CCR5 chemokine receptors on the CD4+ Lymphocyte surface. It then undergoes the process of reverse transcriptase that transcribes single stranded viral RNA into single stranded DNA. This process itself is species specific because not all viruses are single stranded, meaning a double stranded viruses cannot take on the same characteristics. Not only that, but the use of specific receptors and specific cells for viral attachment make it nearly impossible that a virus like particle from another planet would be composed of the exact genomic structure and chemical composition required to create an infection.

In lieu of this information specifically about HIV-1 we can also take a look at another virus for comparison. In the interest of showing a difference between two species I will randomly choose a Coronavirus like the Infectious bronchitis virus which causes SARS. These viruses, much like HIV and others bind to the cells surface by essentially "matching up" glycoproteins used for entry. However there is one essential difference here in that Coronaviruses can also use sialic acid, glycolipids, and hemagglutinin esterase to bind with cellular receptors unlike HIV. So as we see already, there are an innumerable amount of different genetic traits between cells and viruses that make some more or less virulent than others. If a cell does not have the right glycoprotein on its surface, then the virus will be unable to bind with it. Taking this into account we again see how difficult it would be for a virus like particle from another world to display the exact characteristics and chemical composition needed to establish itself as a permanent infection.

With this information there is no doubt in my mind that for an otherworldly bacterium, archaea, and/or virus to survive they would essentially have to evolve along with their host. Viruses in particular are extremely dependant on evolution, and will only evolve in the long run to counterbalance the deficiencies in their replication cycle. Some, like Influenza (including all subtypes thereof), are extremely good at this process and are able to evolve and mutate at an alarming rate in response to host defenses while others like certain Rhinoviruses that cause the Cold have errors in their genome after each replication cycle and typically kill themselves off because of those errors. We can see that for an agent to infect it must be:

1. Genetically and chemically similar to the host

2. That if it were similar in relation to no. 1, it still may be tropic (tissue specific selection)

3. That it not produce enough genetic errors to render it "sterile"

Again, highly doubtful, but not impossible that an otherworldly organism would be able to display any of these characteristics.

[edit on 12-11-2007 by Jazzerman]

I forgot to add that much of what I described in my last post also depends on the bacterium's ability to survive possibly less than ideal conditions as cmdrkeenkid previously pointed out. Not only genetic adaptability to the Earthly host, but if the bacterium and/or archaea was an extremophile that could withstand survival outside the human body.

does anyone remember reading a book called the Hot Zone. its old now but it talks about the ebola virus and its different strings that spread throughout the world. I remember th book being horrifying but at the end the writer himself would go into a cave, the same one which is thought to be where ebola/HIV originated in east africa, and he explored it while wearing a biohazard suit. anything he touches could be dangerous and might infect whether from sharp edges or bugs that carry the virus.
i also remember ebola reston hitting usa but only affecting monkeys, how come it didn't evolve in the same way it did in africa that killed alot of people to this day.

Originally posted by Jazzerman
We can see that for an agent to infect it must be:

1. Genetically and chemically similar to the host

2. That if it were similar in relation to no. 1, it still may be tropic (tissue specific selection)

3. That it not produce enough genetic errors to render it "sterile"

Again, highly doubtful, but not impossible that an otherworldly organism would be able to display any of these characteristics.

Certainly doubtful, but chances of such an organism being infectious might increase substantially if we were already related to them in the first place. Hard to prove, but there is that panspermia notion floating around that life on Earth didn't originate here, but floated in on a bit of extraterrestrial material and took advantage of the relatively friendly enviromnent here. So the odds would also have to include how much potentially infected material within the solar system is local, and how much comes from far outside the system. I understand that the solar system is moving through space as a kind of unit, with a lot of the material, particularly that left over from its formation, moving along together. There is some intrusion by material originating outside the system, interstellar material, but not a lot.

So I would therefore imagine that if Earth was seeded with life from a local comet or meteorite, then other local comets or meteorites might still carry similar organisms that started life here, billions of years old, and as a result might be genetically compatible to us on a very fundamental level, and enough for them to get a genetic foothold for a nasty infection.

If, such interplanetary critters exist, of course. We'll have to see if any are found, as we get better data from comets, asteroids and other little chunks of stuff floating around out there.

Good point Nohup. I had completely forgotten about the Panspermia hypothesis, and as you say, it's taking a leap of faith to believe it without any real evidence. Right now the hypothesis borders on the Scientology side, but perhaps one day evidence will suggest otherwise.