Daily Archives: May 14, 2015

Italian Astronaut Shows Off Space Station’s Snack Supply …

Posted: May 14, 2015 at 10:42 am

When it comes to preparing for a long-duration space trip, forget the Tang; what you really need are some wholesome snacks.

Aspiring astronauts got a glimpse of spaceflyers' snack options when Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti showed off her favorite space snacks in a videorecorded on the International Space Station and released the European Space Agency on April 21.

"Snack time is a great opportunity to put the right kind of rocket fuel in your body," Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman to fly in space, said in the video. "And, as always, don't panic eating healthy is not rocket science."

In the video, she casually grabs dried apples, macadamia nuts, a pumpkin-seed bar and other snacks from a rack in the space station's Node 1 (Unity) module, showing all of them before letting them float away off-camera. (Except for one macadamia nut, which Cristoforetti munched.)

All of these snacks have a long shelf life, which makes sense because astronauts don't have access to refrigeration on board the orbiting lab, and the spaceflyers routinely go months between cargo shipments.

Lastly, Cristoforetti displayed a "very special power bar" made just for her. It includes "plenty of healthy nutritious ingredients" such as nuts, seeds, full-grain cereals and the cyanobacterium spirulina.

Cristoforetti arrived at theInternational Space Station in November. She and fellow Expedition 43 crewmembers Anton Shkaplerov and Terry Virts are scheduled to come back to Earth Wednesday (May 13).

Follow Elizabeth Howell@howellspace, or Space.com@Spacedotcom. We're also onFacebookandGoogle+.Originally published onSpace.com.

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Italian Astronaut Shows Off Space Station's Snack Supply ...

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What Is Genetic Engineering?

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What is Genetic Engineering?

Written by: Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher WEN Trust, July 1998

Synthesis/Regeneration: A Magazine of Green Social Thought, Vol. 18 (Winter 1999), pp. 9-12 [Note: For technical reasons, the graphics accompanying the orginal article have not been reproduced here.]

We find it mixed in our food on the shelves in the supermarket--genetically engineered soybeans and maize. We find it growing in a plot down the lane, test field release sites with genetically engineered rape seed, sugar beet, wheat, potato, strawberries and more. There has been no warning and no consultation.

It is variously known as genetic engineering, genetic modification or genetic manipulation. All three terms mean the same thing, the reshuffling of genes usually from one species to another; existing examples include: from fish to tomato or from human to pig. Genetic engineering (GE) comes under the broad heading of biotechnology.

But how does it work? If you want to understand genetic engineering it is best to start with some basic biology.

What is a cell? A cell is the smallest living unit, the basic structural and functional unit of all living matter, whether that is a plant, an animal or a fungus.Some organisms such as amoebae, bacteria, some algae and fungi are single-celled - the entire organism is contained in just one cell. Humans are quite different and are made up of approximately 3 million cells -(3,000,000,000,000 cells). Cells can take many shapes depending on their function, but commonly they will look like a brick with rounded comers or an angular blob - a building block.Cells are stacked together to make up tissues, organs or structures (brain, liver, bones, skin, leaves, fruit etc.).

In an organism, cells depend on each other to perform various functions and tasks; some cells will produce enzymes, others will store sugars or fat; different cells again will build the skeleton or be in charge of communication like nerve cells; others are there for defence, such as white blood cells or stinging cells in jelly fish and plants. In order to be a fully functional part of the whole, most cells have got the same information and resources and the same basic equipment.

A cell belonging to higher organisms (e.g. plant or animal) is composed of: a cell MEMBRANE enclosing the whole cell. (Plant cells have an additional cell wall for structural reinforcement.) many ORGANELLES, which are functional components equivalent to the organs in the body of an animal e.g. for digestion, storage, excretion. a NUCLEUS, the command centre of the cell. It contains all the vital information needed by the cell or the whole organism to function, grow and reproduce. This information is stored in the form of a genetic code on the chromosomes, which are situated inside the nucleus.

Proteins are the basic building materials of a cell, made by the cell itself. Looking at them in close-up they consist of a chain of amino-acids, small specific building blocks that easily link up. Though the basic structure of proteins is linear, they are usually folded and folded again into complex structures. Different proteins have different functions. They can be transport molecules (e.g. oxygen binding haemoglobin of the red blood cells); they can be antibodies, messengers, enzymes (e.g. digestion enzymes) or hormones (e.g. growth hormones or insulin). Another group is the structural proteins that form boundaries and provide movement, elasticity and the ability to contract. Muscle fibres, for example, are mainly made of proteins. Proteins are thus crucial in the formation of cells and in giving cells the capacity to function properly.

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What Is Genetic Engineering?

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