A science blog with Eric Berger  Bacteria turn deadlier in
space. What about babies?   The big news today is that
Salmonella bacteria shot into space last summer came home three
times as deadly. Scientists had expected this because ground-
based experiments suggested the zero-gravity environment of
space might increase virulence.   Would a space-born baby
survive?  But it’s fascinating all the same.  All life that we
know of evolved in one Earth gravity. We’ve already seen what
effect spaceflight has on human bones, muscles and the immune
system (it weakens all of them). Now we’re seeing that it has a
striking effect even on the smallest of living things.  Perhaps
the coolest part of the new research is that it pinpoints the
changes in Salmonella down to the genetic level, finding that
microgravity caused the bacteria to express (turn on/off) 167
different genes than bacteria that were kept on the ground.
These genetic changes increased the virulence of the bacteria.
While reporting the story, Jeanne Becker a