Living in Space Slowly REWIRES the Human Body

Spend a year in space, and you come back taller, weaker, and biologically rewired.

In orbit, with almost no gravity pulling on them, astronauts' bodies start changing within just a few days, and after months, the effects become dramatic.

Their spines stretch out, so they grow up to two inches taller. Their bones lose density faster than the elderly, and their muscles waste away, so they must exercise about two hours a day just to slow it down. Fluids float up into their heads, puffing their faces and pressing on their eyes, which can permanently change their vision.

NASA even studied identical twin astronauts and found that spaceflight flipped thousands of genes on and off. Most reset back on Earth, but not all. Space doesn't just move the human body, it quietly reaches in and changes how it runs.

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