Dr. Chris Mason is studying human and bacterial DNA to understand how humans might prepare for life in space, as well as how to defend our bodies from the radiation of long journeys to other planets. As one of 10 investigators on NASA's twin study with Scott and Mark Kelly, Mason examines how the human body changes in space at a molecular level. His quest to map the DNA of microorganisms on Earth and the International Space Station has revealed the vast nature of life as we know it, including the evolution of new forms of bacteria aboard the station—which Mason says can be thought of in some senses as the first extraterrestrial life.

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