Ask your questions here!

[Gina Misra]

If you are trying to ask a question live during Ask an Astrobiologist, please do so in the main chatroom at the bottom of the screen! You can also ask on twitter @saganorg using #AskAstrobio.

If the live show is not airing and you have a question for a scientist, ask it right here and we'll get back to you!

[MOHIT Kakkar]

I just meditated only for 1 and half month ....but still i have after effects of meditating with me....it is been more than a year now...

[Gina Misra]

I think I understand better. Although, I am now realizing this question is a bit out of scope for SAGANet. I can definitely understand how astrobiology may blend itself with spirituality at times, but we are scientists so we aren't experts in spiritual practices. Apologies for the misunderstanding! 

[MOHIT Kakkar]

Dear sir/madam

Hi i am mohit kakkar from india ...i started meditating one and half year ago..i visited bramha kumaris ashram..there i started practising in thier way...looking at the red light with opened eyes without blinking...i dint know..what will be the result of this ...i just started all this to get peace...after few days i started experiencing some amazing things with me...firstly i realised that i can see a red light on the wall where ever i see with concentration...i talked to the sister in ashram and she said windows opened ...nothing explained....after that i saw chakras in front of me with change of colors on the wall...i spoke to the sister she said that is wrong..even i saw a red light from the middle of my forehead like laser light touching the sky...i saw chakra in my forehead while brushing my teeth in front of mirror in the night....i have seen all this with closed eyes also...i saw even my thoughts in my mind...there is something which takes me behind it and shows my blurred live tv of my past or may be future but dont understand what is all that...i saw even third eye in my forehead ....i saw even moon and stars in my mind experienced space....i met with lot many people with my qustions in india ..no one is able to answer my questions...i experienced lot many other ...i am contacting you ...i thought you may answer my all questions...why i experienced all this and what was that...
Still confused....

Regards

Mohit kakkar

Ludhiana

Punjab

India

[MOHIT Kakkar]

Pls read it again carefully

[Sidney London]

Hi! Even though I probably don’t know what profession I would like to pursue yet, i’m very interested in becoming an astrobiologist. Pursuing this is very far off for me, but what should i be doing now to prepare (I was thinking along the lines of internships) and also what education do you need to become an astrobiologist?

[Gina Misra]

Hi Sidney! Glad you joined us. Sanjoy Som, one of our Experts, has written an article for questions such as yours, since it is such a common and important question! This article should get you started:

http://saganet.ning.com/forum/topics/so-you-want-to-become-an-astro...

Next, please check out our resources page! You can find it at the top bar. We try to keep it up to date with all of the school programs, online courses, books, and more that you can get into to make your search for a career as thorough as possible. It's exciting that you're getting started so early! That can only help you.

Best,

Gina

[Gaurav Yadav]

Hello, My name is Gaurav Yadav and I'm from New Delhi, India. I have done B.Tech. And M.Tech. in Biotechnology and have 4+ years of research experience. I have also contributed in some articles which are published online in a reputed journals. I am looking for a Ph.D position in Astrobiology from last year but haven't got any success yet. Can you please give me some suggestion how can I apply so that I will be able to get a fully funded PhD. Position.

[Gina Misra]

Gaurav,

The general process in the United States for applying to graduate school is all I can give advice on, since it is the only system I am at all familiar with. Is that what you are looking for? Are you looking for a program in a different country?

For the United States system, the key is to first identify what specific research interests you have and then visit websites of various programs (we have a list here) to learn about what different individual professors study. At that point, you can begin to contact them directly to find out if they have space in their lab for a PhD student. It's important to explain why you are seeking to work in their lab specifically. Coming across as being interested in "any lab, I just want to go to grad school" will send the message that you are not focused. Since you have research experience, though, I imagine this won't be difficult for you to narrow down what you'd like to study.

This process may be similar in European countries, though I cannot say for certain. I will ping our experts who are outside the US to see if they can reply to you with any advice. We do have experts who are in India. Specifically, there is Astrobiology India and our colleague Siddharth who you can reach here: [e-mail]  

Best of luck to you,

Gina

[Kyle Thomas]

Okay. My question might be out of line, or possibly a stupid one, but i have to ask because its been itching at me for quite some time.
So a human will lose approx one percent of bone mass for each month spent in space correct? Has there been any studies or experiments on any animals, mice for example, where there was a pregnant mouse in space during the embryo process up until birth?
If so, what were the effects on the mother, if any, and the overall outcome of the newborns? Would they be born with little to no bones?
If no studies have been conducted like that, what do you think would happen?
Thank you and good night

[Gina Misra]

Hi Kyle! Welcome to Saganet. I passed your question on to some of our Experts! Their replies will be found here, please allow a few days for them to get back to you. Glad to have you in the community!

[Kyle Thomas]

Sweet!!!! Much obliged mam!!!! Hopefully they don't think I'm a crazy person for wondering something like that. Hmmmm

[Marc Neveu]

Hi Kyle,

I had to do a little bit of research on this one (not my expertise).

Apparently yes, humans lose 1-2% of bone mass per month in microgravity according to this Sci Am article.

I don't think there have been any vertebrates able to go through the full reproductive cycle in space. 

- In a Chinese experiment onboard the Shijian-10 uncrewed capsule for a few days in 2016, mouse embryos kept developing. But these were already fertilized eggs when they were launched and did not go all the way to birth during the few days of the flight. Here are a popular article and a 2018 presentation to the US National Academies that includes a photo of ....

- Mice were born on Earth from sperm stored on the International Space Station for 9 months. This article goes into the history of trying to mate mice in space and this scientific paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes the results: PNAS-mice.pdf.

- My speculation about what would happen to the offspring of mice having lost bone and reproduced in microgravity: it looks like the expression of genes controlling the formation and destruction of bone cells changes in microgravity, i.e. these genes are muted. Here is an open-access scientific paper about this. But that would suggest these genes are still passed on to the next generation. Likely, in microgravity the offspring would still have less bone (muted gene expression), but I'd suspect that if the offspring were placed under gravity (by e.g. landing on a planet or spinning the Space Station), the bone would grow back because the genes would still be present. According to the article above, it's only the load-bearing bones that lose mass in microgravity, the others are not affected.

I hope this helps!

Marc