Question: Hi... have you done anything about space?? Do you know anything about the big bang?? :)

Jim Caryl answered on 14 Jun 2011:

No, not directly, and much of what I know about the Big Bang has come from Prof Brian Cox or my own reading.

However, what I do know about space is that my lab have been thinking about a collaboration with another research group who want to look at how my bacteria (the bacteria that I work on) behave in space. The reason for this is that it has been suggested that certain bacteria can become more dangerous when inside the space station. Whether this is due to there being no gravity, or due to it being a sealed climate, scientists have yet to see. However, one thing is for sure, every surface of the space station is slowly getting coated in a gooey bacteria film called ‘biofilm’, which can degrade the electronics and other machinery.

It’s also important to understand how the human immune system changes in space, and how this might effect the ability of a normal bacteria to start an infection, when on earth the same infection would be unlikely. This is partly because the astronauts eat sterilised food, but it is important that we DO eat some good bacteria in our food; so astronauts might be missing out on some good bacteria, and their guts may be not as healthy as they should be. So if nothing else, NASA would like an effective means of addressing these issues.