Let's smoke, friends…
Cannabis will be grown on the ISS
Alexey Yevglevsky, Naked Science
The American company Space Tango will send cannabis sprouts to the International Space Station (ISS) to find out how microgravity affects the growth of these plants. This is reported by the publication TechCrunch.
The Space Tango company was founded in 2014. She studies the changes that occur in various plants, for example in cataranthus, in microgravity. Now experts are going to send marijuana sprouts to the ISS because of its medical significance. For example, in July, scientists managed to almost triple the life span of laboratory mice suffering from pancreatic cancer with a combination of chemotherapy and cannabidiol.
The company has two microlabs on the ISS, which it uses in order to provide an opportunity for customers – in the face of universities or other companies – to make their own experiments. It makes six deliveries annually. To do this, engineers have developed special containers called TangoLab, which are divided into compartments for each client. The cannabis sprouts will go to a small "clean" laboratory the size of a microwave oven.
According to one of the founders of the company, Chris Kimel, scientists want to see how the properties and growth of different plant species will change under conditions in which gravity will not act on them. After the germs germinate, the researchers plan to return the grown samples to Earth and conduct a genetic analysis.
Space Tango Specialist Joe Chappell is sure that plants subjected to "stress" are "released from the genetic reservoir" and produce compounds that allow them to adapt to a new environment. In his opinion, this may lead to new discoveries in pharmacology.
In June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the first time allowed the use of a drug based on one of the cannabinoids contained in cannabis. It is intended for patients with severe forms of epilepsy. The product may enter the American market in the fall of 2018.
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