The worms aboard the current Atlantis mission, which launched on Monday, hail from Britain's University of Nottingham, where biologists hope to use their tiny lab subjects to gain insight into the ways that muscles develop and atrophy. Though the worm-testing will take place in zero gravity, it has applications here on the homeworld: people who are bedridden, or who have muscular dystrophy or diabetes, are among those who stand to benefit from this week's research.

The batch of worms currently orbiting Earth started life in a Bristol garbage dump. Given such humble origins, you'd never guess their prominence in modern science. The worms are Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes, a species prized for its archetypal genetic structure and often used in far-reaching experiments. In 1998, for example, C. elegans became the first multicellular organism to have its genome fully sequenced.

Part of the reason C. elegans was included in the current mission is its impressive NASA resume. In 2003, the shuttle Columbia broke apart during re-entry after a sixteen-day expedition, resulting in the deaths of all seven crew members. Some time later, a colony of C. elegans that had been on board was found in the crashed wreckage, alive and well.

The worms are just one part of a busy biology week at the International Space Station, where Atlantis is currently docked. A "Butterflies in Space" program will follow the development of a group of caterpillars that went up on the latest flight, and another set of experiments on the cambium tissue in a sampling of Canadian willows will explore how trees grow in microgravity. It's all important work, although you could argue that until we figure out whether ants can be trained to sort tiny screws in space, we haven't really learned anything.

Star Trek: The Federation may have given us huge advances in transportation and energy-matter conversion, but their toilet technology is decidedly dull. The most advanced feature on the brig toilet seen in The Undiscovered Country is that it pops out of the wall. And, sadly, Federation loos are hardly immune to wear and tear; at one point during the Voyager's journey, the ship was down to a mere four functional lavs. And, if Jonathan Frakes is to be believed, the situation on the Enterprise-D is even more dire:

Galaxy Quest: In a bit of oversight, the creators of the non-existent television series Galaxy Quest failed to include even a single bathroom in the official blueprints for the NSEA Protector. Fortunately, a deleted scene reveals that, despite mistaking the TV episodes for actual historical documents, those ingenious Thermians recognized the need for mammalian waste extraction. It probably works, but by the time you figure out how, it would be far too late:

Dr. Lazarus - Galaxy Quest

Lexx: Off-beat space opera Lexx never shied away from toilet humor, so it figures that the ship's toilet would be, well, humorous. The titular living ship naturally has an organic lavatory, complete with a tongue, so you can finish your bowel movement with that fresh, just-licked-by-a-giant-space-bug clean feeling.

Babylon 5: The Babylon 5 space station plays host to a number of species, many with unique physiological properties. While human males can opt for the classic urinal, station toilets come equipped with attachments to accommodate other anatomies. As for species with more offensive excretory processes – such as the carrion-eating pak'ma'ra – they get their own facilities.

Firefly: As a general rule, everything on the smuggling ship Serenity is always breaking down, but the toilets seem to be the only things Kaylee isn't constantly repairing. Perhaps that's because they're the model of simplicity: sleeping-car style cans that, like the Federation brig toilets, pull out from the wall.

My Teacher Glows in the Dark by Bruce Coville: When Peter Thompson travels through space to meet with an interplanetary council, he discovers that the most difficult part of the mission may not be convincing the aliens not to destroy humanity, but figuring out how to use the facilities:

Give me the code for a bathroom, please," I said to the URAT.

"Insufficient data."

"What do you mean?" I cried, crossing my legs.

"I do not know what kind of bathroom you need. We have fifty-three different types of facilities."

I remembered the octopi toilets, or whatever they were, that I had seen on the first chart. Given the variety of aliens I had met already, it made sense that the ship needed a lot of different bathrooms.

"I'm glad I'm not the plumber for this place," I muttered.

"Yes," agreed the URAT, "that would be a disaster."

"Look, I don't need to be insulted by a machine. Just tell me how to find a bathroom!"

The URAT informed me that it needed to know more about me. After it had asked fifteen or twenty questions, some of them very personal, it finally gave me a bathroom code.

Not a moment too soon! I thought, as I punched the code into the control pad. I stepped into a bathroom that was only mildly odd – which is to say that it only took me about five minutes (five desperate minutes) to figure out how to use it.

Battlestar Galactica: The bathroom holds particular dramatic significance for BSG's doctor/Cylon collaborator/nymph squad prophet Gaius Baltar. It's where Laura Roslin asks him to be her vice president – and where she later threatens to hang his presidential portrait. It's also where he gets stared down by a supremely pissed-off (and audibly pissing) Starbuck. Of course, while the toilets in the Colonial Fleet seem to work, there's never enough toilet paper and the stall doors just won't stay closed.

Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams: The Starship Bistromath does away with the need for plumbing altogether. By placing the teleportation cubicles in the bathrooms, Slartibartfast has ensured that any toilet issues can be resolved by simply teleporting the offending substances elsewhere.

Star Kid: When Spencer Griffith finds an alien Cybersuit, the issue isn't whether the suit's functions (including one for waste collection) work, it's whether Spencer can think of the proper term for communicating his rather urgent needs to the suit's AI (starting at 9:58):

Learn more via Popular Science.

Images by AP.

The video shows Expedition 19 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Koichi Wakata celebrating the successful launch of the International Space Station's new water recycling system by downing some former urine and trying to look excited about it. Barratt, at least, could find words to describe his emotions on the event:

This has been the stuff of science fiction. Everybody's talked about recycling water in a closed loop system, but nobody's ever done it before. Here we are today with the first round of recycled water... We're really happy for this day and for the team that put this together. This is the kind of technology that will get us to the moon and further.

Suddenly, Star Trek's future seems slightly tainted, don't you agree?

[NASA]

Apparently it will also have a spiffy new toilet.

Help make our favorite Firefly ship part of real-life space exploration history. Though right now Serenity has a healthy lead, Stephen Colbert is trying to make "Colbert" a write-in winner, and the Scientologists are pushing "Xenu" as a name. I think we can all agree that Serenity is the right choice for a space station designed to look out into the black and help us learn how to live out there one day.

Vote for Serenity at NASA.

There's been an ongoing toilet crisis on the ISS ever since the last one broke, and we've been trying not to imagine all the pooping into bags that's been going on up there. Luckily, the new mega-recycling toilet was already in the works and arrived this week. Already, flight engineer Sandra Magnus has installed it and the plumbing is all hooked up and ready to go.

All they need now is some privacy. Apparently the toilet came with a flimsy curtain, which Magnus removed in order to install the toilet. Hopefully they'll re-hang the curtain - or maybe get a door or something for just a little more privacy.

The toilet is part of a much bigger overhaul of the ISS life support systems, which includes a complete water-reclamation system for recycling the astronauts' urine and sweat for use as gray water as well as (hopefully) potable water too. Right now, the water recovery system (pictured below) that will recycle urine has been tested back on Earth and the purified urine is deemed safe for use in washing. Further tests will reveal if it's safe to drink as well.

The water recovery system, it is hoped, will make life easier for a bigger crew in the coming year. Six astronauts will crew the ISS, doubling the number of humans living in orbit.

SOURCE: Space.com

All images via NASA.

Called SPHERES (for Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites), these colorful game pieces may be about to change the way spaceships operate. They're tiny prototypes of what could be large, autonomous ships that fly in formation and automatically rendezvous with each other in space. Universe Today's Nancy Atkinson points out that these are essentially maintenance droids of the future, which could perform satellite maintenance and even build an entire spacecraft in orbit.

They might also eventually replace satellites altogether. Atkinson writes:

Smaller, multiple satellite missions are economical and provide redundancy. Instead of launching one big, heavy satellite, launching lots of little is easier. They can orbit Earth in tandem, each doing their own small part of the overall mission. If a solar flare zaps one satellite—no problem. The rest can close ranks and carry on. Launch costs are reduced, too, because tiny satellites can hitch a ride inside larger payloads, getting to space almost free of charge.

Floating Battledroids [via Universe Today] Thanks, Belabras!

Images via NASA.

Astronauts who are in space at the time of an election were given the right to vote by a 1997 Texas law (astronauts tend to live in or near Houston). Fincke and Chamitoff will cast their votes, and the results will be sent to the Harris and Brazoria County Clerk via encrypted downlinks and emails. The two participatory democracy loving space travelers even made a "Get Out the Vote" video while on board the ISS.

If they're going through all that trouble to vote, wouldn't you feel like a jerk if you didn't bother? So vote already!

No word on which candidate the astronauts plan to vote for, but the ISS is sporting a "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Kodos" bumper sticker. Image by: NASA.

Be like an astronaut: Vote! [Scientific American]

While the technicians fix the “gas separator issue” (we can’t make this stuff up, people), the crew will redirect individual efforts to the loo in the visiting Soyuz spacecraft—yup, the very vehicle schlepping computer-game developer/lucky-bastard space tourist/commode commodore Richard Garriott. Meanwhile, NASA is shelling out 19 million bucks for a second, state-of-the-art Russian back-up toilet that’ll surely put that hoity-toity gold-plated throne in Hong Kong to shame.

Malfunctioning toilet? Possible former communists on board? We smell (among other things) a cover up! Vote on what you think the real reason is behind NASA’s latest crisis:

(a) a run-of-the-mill technical difficulties
(b) a clandestine alien invasion
(c) some knucklehead flushed a condom down the hatch
(d) a sentient central-computer-system hazing its peeps
(e) that damn cabbage-and-liver borscht that space-station commander Sergei Volkov insisted on whipping up

Image courtesy of davefigley

Over 3700 people have already applied for the final two positions in Canada's four-strong team to spend half a year aboard the International Space Station on a research mission. Canada's Chief Astronaut Steve MacLean explains what qualities the ideal applicant should have:

[We're looking to find out h]ow trainable the individuals are. To be an astronaut requires a versatile set of skills and we need to find out in an individual can multitask, has good situational awareness ... and good hand-eye co-ordination... Is the individual a happy camper and a good team player? Does he or she get along well with a group?

If it wasn't seeming enough like the kind of job interview you've already been on multiple times in your life, MacLean then adds the ultimate cliche:

We want to get individuals who are looking at this as a career.

Yes, that's right; if you were hoping to spend six months about a multi-billion dollar piece of space hardware just for shits and giggles, turns out this isn't for you. Wait until Richard Branson gets Virgin Galactic going and apply for a job then, I guess.

Canada seeks super-fit geniuses to fill space program vacancies [Canada.com]

ESA scientists are currently testing intermetallic materials, combinations of metal similar to alloys in which two or more metals are diffused together on a molecular level. Titanium aluminide is an intermetal that could cut the weight of fan blades in jet engines by half. Unfortunately, titanium aluminide tends to fail under high temperatures. This can be solved by introducing small amounts of other materials, such as niobium. In Earth gravity, weight differences between the different metals makes it difficult to get them to diffuse properly.

Small-scale tests in rockets have shown that zero-g solves many of the issues with intermetallic production. The ESA will run larger tests over longer periods of time in the new Columbus science module on the ISS. These space metals could revolutionize the aerospace industry. Photo by: NASA.

'Space metals' aid perfection quest. [BBC]

Imagine if you will that you are on the ISS for a tour of duty. You can only bring a few things with you, so you're relying on the ISS library to keep you entertained. And you arrive only to discover there is ABSOLUTELY NO STAR TREK. That's right: you can watch every single Star Wars movie, every single Matrix movie (including Animatrix), every Lost episode, all the X-Men, tons of Stargate episodes, and even The Princess Bride (yay!). But no Star Trek movies. No Star Trek TV shows. WHAT THE HELL, people? Why does the government hate Star Trek?!

I really couldn't tell you, but I can tell you that the book selections are a little less mind-boggling. There's a heaping dose of Analog and Asimov's SF magazines, the Foundation books from Asimov, some Greg Bear, some Kim Stanley Robinson, lots of Jules Verne, and an incredibly large amount of Lois McMaster Bujold's novels. (Somebody at NASA must be a fan.) There's also an inexplicably large number of the Xanth books by Piers Anthony, in case you need to jumpstart your 13-year-old humor glands while in orbit.

But I'm still reeling over the Trek miscalculation. What is happening to the U.S. government? And by extension, to the INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY on board the ISS? Really, I am in shock. I hope the guys over at TrekMovie can explain this because I can't. (Thanks, David!)

Check out the full list of goodies you can read and watch on the ISS, via GovernmentAttic. [PDF]

The ESA's ATV is fully automated. When it gets close to the ISS, the entire docking procedure is handled by computers using GPS, optical sensors and an off-board laser range-finder. Once it is docked, astronauts can enter the cargo bay directly from the main ISS modules and retrieve supplies without ever putting on a space suit. It will remain docked for several months, during which time it will be emptied of supplies and then gradually filled with waste and garbage (liquid and solid).

When it's time for another cargo vehicle to dock with the ISS, the Jules Verne will undock and head into a steep re-entry over the Pacific Ocean, burning up when it hits the atmosphere. The ESA has plans for another six expendable cargo vehicles - it would be cool if they named them all after classic sci-fi authors. The Jules Verne carried two rare manuscripts by the groundbreaking writer, which will be kept on the ISS. Photo by: ESA.

Impressive dress-rehearsal for Jules Verne ATV. [ESA]

Images from NASA/ISS. [SpaceWeather]

[NASA]