China Brought New Organism Back from Space--and It Evolves

Nope…not today, Satan

Space nerds on China’s Tiangong space station were cosmically swashbuckling the space decks and swabbed a new type of bacteria. They discovered a new bacterium called Niallia tiangongensis. Then they brought it back to Earth.

My immediate reactoin was to scream loud enough that the astronauts on Tiangong could hear me:

“Nope.”

“Put. It. Back.”

Earth is fucked up enough right now. We don’t need to bring new space flora and fauna back to our planet. We can’t even keep measles under control, and we’ve had a functional vaccine for over 50 years. Oh, and we’re on the brink of planetary war, and a fascist dictator is leading the free world.

Not today, Satan.

We don’t need to bring back a cosmic piggybacker to Earth. For fucks sake, the last thing we need this year is Space Pox. Even if we magically came up with a vaccine for space-dust armageddon, getting people to take it would be tough. Someone would spread on Facebook that Bill Gates put alien DNA and a chip in it. And by someone, I mean RFK Jr.

But I can safely take off my rocket-shaped tin-foil hat. This bacteria isn’t all that bad. Well, probably. But then again, what does a humor writer know?

So, Niallia tiangongensis is a variation of the Earth bacterium, Niallia circulans. It was probably just hanging out in some hangar on Hainan Island, when it got catapulted into space. Just like Katy Perry.

Unlike Gayle King, however, this lil bacterium did something in space.

It adapted.

Here’s the freaky (then cool) part. Niallia circulans is a bacterium that causes sepsis, an infection that has a 30–40% mortality rate in humans. So my apologies to Perry and King, they weren’t the worst things we launched into space.

For fucks sake, the aliens already don’t talk to us. We don’t need to give them sepsis.

The cool part of this story is that Niallia circulans was forced to evolve in the brutal conditions of space, like radiation. Unlike us puny humans (who are big, fleshy locusts and parasites), it evolves quickly and adapts to its environment. It isn’t just surviving either — it’s thriving. It’s repairing the damage caused by the oxidative stress of space.

Meanwhile, here on Earth, I can barely survive the stress of tax season.

“The bacteria displayed several adaptations to endure the harsh environment of space, including the presence of genes that help manage oxidative stress, repair radiation-induced damage, and form biofilms by breaking down gelatin to extract carbon and nitrogen,” writes The Debrief

I feel about the size of an amoeba, since I swear — some days I can barely convert oxygen to carbon dioxide.

This tiny little organism can adapt to live in space, while I can’t survive the Canadian winter without my heated blanket. I’m not the only mouth-breather who is closer to an amoeba than cool space-evolving bacteria either. So, if you’re counting, so far — the bacterium is winning.

Niallia circulans, and I’m assuming it’s cool new space superhero version, Niallia tiangongensis, could easily wipe out swaths of us mouth breathers. Top of the food chain my ass.

But that’s not why scientists are studying it. Well, I hope they’re ensuring it doesn’t mobilize to wipe out humanity, too. But they’re studying it because bacterial evolution, like what happened with NT, could be the key to becoming an interplanetary species.

That’s right, we’re going to learn how to be adaptable to our environments. It’s going to teach us how not to be parasites, hopefully. Although we might be expecting a lot from an organism without a cerebral cortex (not that ours have helped us much lately).

Adaptation to living in space and beyond the final frontier is something we’ll need though, because humans are the smartest dumbasses on the planet. We’re definitely the knuckledraggers of the cosmos, and just smart enough to know how to use fireworks to blow off our opposable thumbs.

We’re also figuring out how to leave the planet — but not how to not blow it up or turn it into a gigantic, oven-level jacuzzi.

Anyhoozy, it’s 2am, I wrote this exhausted and running on fumes (so, if it’s weird, that’s why). I’m going to go to bed and hope that we don’t blow ourselves up in the morning.

I’m tired…subscribe, or whatever.