In today's CNN 10 news clip, they covered the story of NASA's twin study. NASA wanted to study the effects of longterm space travel, and in order to do this, they brought in a set of identical twins, Mark and Scott. They studied the twins thoroughly before sending one of them into space for a year. They continued to study the two bodies during and after Scott's space travel. They found out that Scott's chromosomes actually lengthened which brought him back to earth being 2 inches taller. This could've been due to the increase in exercise he did up in space and the reduced calorie intake. On the other hand, while on earth, Mark's chromosomes actually shrunk. However, Scott came back with a small decrease in his cognitive abilities overall.
I think this study was very interesting because we don't really know what space is capable of on our physical bodies. This is great for the advancement of traveling farther out into space. In order for humans to reach farther planets, they must travel in space for a long time. In order for that to happen, we must know the long term effects. This can relate to the constant race in the past century for countries to explore space. They are constantly competing to be the first to go the furthest. Just like they were able to put the first man on the moon, the U.S. could be the first to travel farther out into space.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/26/studentnews/ten-content-mon/
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