Good news: space bacteria (probably) aren’t evolving to destroy us

好消息！太空細菌可能無法進化到毀滅我們的地步

Microbes on ISS are changing their genes, but don’t worry.

在國際空間站上，微生物們的基因正在改變，但是不用擔心。

We’ve all read science fiction stories about a disease going rogue on a space ship, decimating the crew. While space holds plenty of other terrors, new research suggests that bacteria we bring with us from Earth are more likely to evolve to survive alongside the spaceship’s human crew.

某種疾病在太空飛船上爆發(fā)肆虐，殺死飛船上所有人員，我們都讀過類似情節(jié)的科幻小說。盡管太空中有著其它許多恐怖的東西，但新的研究表明，我們從地球帶來的細菌更有可能進化成與太空飛船上的人類宇航員共同生存的細菌。

Hartmann and her colleagues compared the genomes of microbes from the International Space Station and ones here on Earth. Unlike humans, who generally carry the same genes, bacteria can differ—even within the same species.

Hartmann和她的同事們比較了國際空間站上和地球上微生物的基因組。與通常攜帶相同基因的人類不同，細菌的基因甚至在同一物種內也可以有不同。

Of course, not all humans are identical, but we all carry the same kinds of genetic information: we may have brown or blue eyes, but almost all of us are born with the genes that create peepers of some sort. For bacteria, “it would sort of be the equivalent of some of the bacteria in a species having wings and some having arms,” says Hartmann.

當然了，并非所有的人類基因都是相同的，但我們都攜帶著同一種遺傳信息：我們可能有棕色或者藍色的眼睛，但幾乎所有人都天生自帶創(chuàng)造某種眼睛的基因。而對于細菌來說，“這就有點像同一種細菌中有的長了翅膀，有的卻長了手臂，”哈特曼說道。

“Our findings suggest that the most crucial bacterial functions involved in this potential adaptive response are specific to bacterial lifestyle and do not appear to have direct impacts on human health,” the researchers write.

研究人員寫道：“我們的研究結果表明，在這種潛在的適應性反應中，細菌最關鍵的功能只特定于（改變）細菌的生活方式，應該不會對人類健康產生直接影響?！?br/>
It’s a promising set of first results, but we can’t assume the estimated one trillion species of microbes on Earth will all behave the same way in space. “Bacterial diversity is huge,” Hartmann says. She hopes further research can expand the comparison by analyzing other bacteria, and doing experiments to try to replicate the changes in lab environments.

這是一組很美好的初步結果，但我們不能因此就認為地球上大約一萬億種微生物在太空中都會有這樣的行為。Hartmann表示“細菌的種類極其多樣?！彼ＭM一步研究，通過分析其它細菌來擴大這一對比度，并通過做實驗來嘗試復制實驗室環(huán)境中（細菌發(fā)生）的變化。

Hartmann’s team “did a really good job,” says David Coil, a UC Davis microbiologist who studies the ISS.?

加州大學戴維斯分校研究國際空間站的微生物學家David Coil稱，Hartmann團隊“做得非常好”。

All built environments have microbes, says Hartmann, because they contain life—it’s just a matter of figuring out how to best live with them, rather than trying to wipe them all out.

Hartmann說道，所有的人造環(huán)境都存在微生物，因為這種環(huán)境中存在生命。我們需要解決的問題是如何最有利于我們地和它們生活在一起，而不是試圖將它們全部消滅。

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