'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
The next "giant leap" for humans may be a trip to Mars, but having enough oxygen-carrying red blood cells for the journey might present a challenge, new research suggests.
Even space tourists lining up for short trips might have to stay home if they are at risk for anemia, or red blood cell deficiency, researchers said.
Astronauts are known to experience "space anemia" but until now it was thought to be temporary. One NASA study called it "a 15-day ailment."
Doctors attributed it to destruction of red blood cells, or hemolysis, resulting from fluid shifts as astronauts' bodies accommodated to weightlessness and again as they re-accommodated to gravity.
In fact, anemia is "a primary effect of going to space," said Dr. Guy Trudel of the University of Ottawa, who led a study of 14 astronauts funded by the Canadian Space Agency. "As long as you are in space, you are destroying more blood cells" than you are making."
Normally, the body destroys and replaces nearly 2 million red blood cells per second. Trudel's team found astronauts' bodies destroyed 3 million red blood cells per second during their six-month missions.
"We thought we knew about space anemia, and we did not," Trudel said.
The astronauts generated extra red cells to compensate for the destroyed ones. But, Trudel asked, how long can the body constantly produce 50% more red cells? A roundtrip mission to Mars would take about two years, NASA estimated.
"If you are on your way to Mars and ... you can't keep up" with the need to produce all those extra red blood cells, "you could be in serious trouble," Trudel said.
Having fewer red blood cells in space is not a problem when your body is weightless, he added. But after landing on Earth, and potentially on other planets, anemia could affect astronauts' energy, endurance and strength.
A year after returning to Earth, the astronauts' red blood cells had not completely returned to pre-flight levels, his team reported on Friday in Nature Medicine.
Trudel also studies the effects of immobility on patients who are bedridden for weeks or months.
The new findings mimic what he sees in his patients, he said, which suggests that what happens in space may also be happening in immobile patients.
"A solution to one could also apply to the other," he said.
Sulekha Anand, who researches human physiology at San Jose State University and was not involved in the study, agreed.
"The findings have implications for understanding the physiological consequences of space flight and anemia in patients on the ground," she said.
Trudel's team is studying ways to solve the problem, he said.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.