Worm returned from a space mission successfully

worm family that originated in a rubbish dump in Bristol has successfully returned from a space mission, proving for the first time that worms can survive untended in space.

Studying the effect of space travel on worms has big implications for understanding how humans can survive in space – if and when we have to flee our planet and set up colonies in distant worlds.

Nottingham university researcher Dr Nathaniel Szewczyk has been a part of boffinry teams that have sent worms into space twice before, but this latest mission marks the longest stretch that the microscopic Caenorhabditis elegans worms have survived in space and been recovered. A group of boffins led by Szewczyk sent up the latest batch of space worms with the space shuttle Discovery. The worms have now returned, 12 generations later, records their paper, published today in Interface, a journal of the Royal Society.