Lettuce grown on the International Space Station is popular among astronauts, but researchers think it’s not healthy
Space lettuce is also popular on the International Space Station (ISS), where astronauts often enjoy leafy greens in space gardens known as Veggies, or nibble on red leaf lettuce they’ve grown themselves.
But scientists say lettuce grown in a simulated microgravity environment on Earth is more susceptible to infections such as E. coli and salmonella than lettuce grown in space and may be unsafe for astronauts. I discovered something.
recently published papers scientific report A group of researchers have grown plants in a device called a clinostat and have shown that they were able to disorientate the plants by spinning them around like rotisserie chickens. gizmodo report.
“Effectively, power plants will not know which way is up or down,” Noah Totzlein, lead author of the new paper, said in a statement. “We were kind of confusing their reaction to gravity.”
Plants have cells that sense gravity, causing roots to grow downwards and plants to sprout upwards. However, in microgravity environments, plants’ natural defenses against stressors are less effective.
Stomata, which are tiny holes in leaves and stems, help breathe and close when they sense stressors such as bacteria. Studies have shown that during clinostat rides at carnivals, plants become disoriented in the presence of bacteria and their pores open up.
“The fact that they remained open while we were putting them through what we thought was stress was really unexpected,” Totzlein said.
From this experiment, the researchers concluded that bacteria such as Salmonella may more easily invade leaf tissue under simulated microgravity conditions such as the ISS.
A 2020 study of the first lettuce crop grown on the ISS from 2014 to 2016 found that the lettuce had the same nutritional content as the Earth variety, but showed higher levels of bacteria. became.
Despite efforts to alleviate microgravity, the confined environment of the ISS, where astronauts live in headquarters, could expose plants to pathogens and prevent them from producing nutrient-rich food for future missions to the Moon or Mars. source vegetable systems.
Researchers have proposed modifying the genetics of space lettuce to prevent its pores from expanding in space, reducing the risk of bacterial infection when astronauts consume the lettuce.
They are currently testing different lettuce varieties in a simulated microgravity environment.