8 Summary
Download this video clip.Video player: Video 7
Transcript: Video 7 Conclusion of Week 5.
HELEN:
So here we are already at the end of week five what have we learned this week? Well, we've seen that our bread has four major types of mould or bacteria on it, all of which can change in the colour and the way they present themselves as the mould grows and evolves over the weekly periods.
We've also seen that, in actual fact, some bacteria can breed and multiply in the space station environment. And because of DNA sequencing onboard the ISS, we're now starting to learn something about the survivability of microbes, not just on the inside, but also outside in the space environment, which starts to tell us about the likelihood of finding life in other regions of our solar system.
We're going to take this information and use it in a societal sense to try and help us understand how we can fight against bacterial resistance here on earth and help improve the health and longevity of human beings. Who would have imagined that by going into space and exploring, we're actually helping everyday health and society?
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).
Now is a good time to revisit the learning outcomes for this week. Here is a summary of what you have covered.
- You have encountered the differences between bacteria and fungi.
- You have compared your experiment of growing mold on bread with the course team’s results.
- You have seen how research into ‘space bugs’ is being carried out on the ISS.
- You have looked at how random positioning machines can be used to alter the values of gravitational acceleration.
- Finally, you have looked at the survivability of microbes elsewhere in the Universe, and the habitability of other planets.
Next week you will see how microgravity environments are recreated on Earth and the processes involved in forming planets.
You can now go to Week 6 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .