By Mindy Weisberger, Senior
Writer | June 13, 2017 05:36am ET
The regenerative power of
flatworms — which can regrow into complete individuals after they've been cut
into pieces — is well-known among scientists. But a group of flatworms that
recently visited the International Space Station (ISS) had a few surprises to
share when they returned to Earth.
Scientists sent the worms into
space to observe how microgravity and fluctuations in the geomagnetic field
might affect the worms' unusual ability to regenerate. This was done to better
understand how living in space could affect cell activity.
Compared with a group of
flatworms that never left Earth, the spacefaring worms showed some unexpected
effects from their time off the planet: most notably, the rare sprouting of a
second head in an amputated piece of a worm, the researchers documented in a
new study.
Planarian flatworms (Dugesia japonica) are very flat and
tiny, measuring about 0.2 to 0.4 inches (0.5 to 1 centimeter) in length, study
co-author Michael Levin, a professor of biology at Tufts University in
Massachusetts, told Live Science in an email. (Levin is also the director of
the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts and the Tufts Center for Regenerative and
Developmental Biology.)
One flatworm could result in
multitudes, under the right conditions. Individuals can perform fission —
dividing to form two distinct individuals — and severed flatworms can grow new
heads or tails, depending on where the body was cut. To find out
how factors such as gravity and Earth's magnetic field affect the worms'
ability to regrow themselves, scientists sent sets of whole worms and amputated
worms to the ISS for five weeks, the study authors wrote. Researchers sealed
the worms inside tubes with varying ratios of air and water, and then observed
the animals when they came back, the authors wrote.
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