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We live in magical times: you read in the news that our national space shuttle just floated away from the international space station, and just that sentence seems like it comes from the future, even now. Even after I've heard it 100 times. For a few goosebumps, if you're a space nerd like me, watch this tour of the space station. If you're short on time, the payoff comes at about 8:40, when you can see out the magnificent Millennium Falcon-like window a floating blue sphere.
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Animals can survive in space. At least one, anyway.
The water bear, a microorganism any mother could love,
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Water bear"][/caption]
is going up for another round of extreme testing.
These guys survived 10 days in the cold vacuum of space in 2007. When they returned home and reproduced, they were triumphantly given ticker tape parades.
Fittingly, this little guy is going on t-shirts.
And he's getting another test. On ...