You are viewing a single comment's thread from:

RE: How Did Astronaut DNA Become 'Fake News'?

in #science7 years ago (edited)

Thanks for the post. Yes the news media often blows research out proportion or misinterprets the results.
NASA issued the following statement on March 15, 2018:

"Mark and Scott Kelly are still identical twins; Scott’s DNA did not fundamentally change. What researchers did observe are changes in gene expression, which is how your body reacts to your environment. This likely is within the range for humans under stress, such as mountain climbing or SCUBA diving. The change related to only 7 percent of the gene expression that changed during spaceflight that had not returned to preflight after six months on Earth. This change of gene expression is very minimal. We are at the beginning of our understanding of how spaceflight affects the molecular level of the human body. NASA and the other researchers collaborating on these studies expect to announce more comprehensive results on the twins studies this summer."