182: Squids In Space

We had four episodes where the sound quality was…odd (and this was one of them). Pretend you’re listening to a NASA broadcast and that we’re coming to you live from the International Space Station.

On June 3, 2021 an intrepid group of baby bobtail squid hopped a ride on SpaceX and became tiny squid-stronauts! These bioluminescent critters glow blue with the help of a special bacteria. They aren’t born with this bacteria so once in space, ISS researchers will introduce them to bioluminescent bacteria to see if their microbiome is affected the same way our human astronauts’ biome is affected by space.

Baby bobtail squid (Jamie S. Foster, University of Florida)

image: NASA