Ed Yong explains what Cheryl Nickerson has learned from sending bacteria into space:
[Her experiment] demonstrated that bacteria turn into superbugs in the gravity-free environment of space, gathering together, gaining strength and becoming much more effective at causing disease. … With infectious powers bolstered by zero gravity, bacteria represent a significant risk to the health of space-faring humans … By observing how bacteria react to the extreme environment of space, its researchers hope to learn more about how they behave in the human body.
(Image: D. rad Bacteria: Candidate Astronauts, "known as an extremophile, bacteria such as D. rad are of interest to NASA partly because they might be adaptable to help human astronauts survive on other worlds," by Michael Daly and DOE)
The Dish 