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Space travel has advanced significantly over the last six decades with astronauts spending up to 6 months at the International Space Station. Nonetheless, the living environment while in outer space is extremely challenging to astronauts. In particular, exposure to space radiation represents a serious potential long-term threat to the health of astronauts because the amount of radiation exposure accumulates during their time in space. Therefore, health risks associated with exposure to space radiation are an important topic in space travel, and characterizing space radiation in detail is essential for improving the safety of space missions. In the first part of this review, we provide an overview of the space radiation environment and briefly present current and future endeavors that monitor different space radiation environments. We then present research evaluating adverse biological effects caused by exposure to various space radiation environments and how these can be reduced. We especially consider the deleterious effects on cellular DNA and how cells activate DNA repair mechanisms. The latest technologies being developed, e.g., a fluorescent ubiquitination-based cell cycle indicator, to measure real-time cell cycle progression and DNA damage caused by exposure to ultraviolet radiation are presented. Progress in examining the combined effects of microgravity and radiation to animals and plants are summarized, and our current understanding of the relationship between psychological stress and radiation is presented. Finally, we provide details about protective agents and the study of organisms that are highly resistant to radiation and how their biological mechanisms may aid developing novel technologies that alleviate biological damage caused by radiation. Future research that furthers our understanding of the effects of space radiation on human health will facilitate risk-mitigating strategies to enable long-term space and planetary exploration.

Radiation damages many cellular components and disrupts cellular functions, and was previously reported to impair locomotion in the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans. However, the response to even higher doses is not clear. First, to investigate the effects of high-dose radiation on the locomotion of C. elegans, we investigated the dose range that reduces whole-body locomotion or leads to death. Irradiation was performed in the range of 0–6 kGy. In the crawling analysis, motility decreased after irradiation in a dose-dependent manner. Exposure to 6 kGy of radiation affected crawling on agar immediately and caused the complete loss of motility. Both γ-rays and carbon-ion beams significantly reduced crawling motility at 3 kGy. Next, swimming in buffer was measured as a motility index to assess the response over time after irradiation and motility similarly decreased. However, swimming partially recovered 6 h after irradiation with 3 kGy of γ-rays. To examine the possibility of a recovery mechanism, in situ GFP reporter assay of the autophagy-related gene lgg-1 was performed. The fluorescence intensity was stronger in the anterior half of the body 7 h after irradiation with 3 kGy of γ-rays. GFP::LGG-1 induction was observed in the pharynx, neurons along the body, and the intestine. Furthermore, worms were exposed to region-specific radiation with carbon-ion microbeams and the trajectory of crawling was measured by image processing. Motility was lower after anterior-half body irradiation than after posterior-half body irradiation. This further supported that the anterior half of the body is important in the locomotory response to radiation.

Nanowires occupy a prestigious place in nanoelectronics, nanomechanics, and biomimetics. Although there are notable methods to grow nanowires via self-assembly, there is a key drawback in the need to find out the specific conditions appropriate for each system. In this sense, universal techniques to fabricate such nanowires from various organic materials have been sought for the continued progress of the related research field. Here we report one of the promising and facile methodologies to quantitatively produce nanowires with controlled geometrical parameters. In this method, referred to as “Single Particle-Triggered Linear Polymerization (STLiP)”, organic thin films on a supporting substrate were irradiated with high-energy charged particles, accelerated by particle accelerators. Each particle penetrates from the top of the films to the substrate while gradually releasing kinetic energy along its trajectory (ion track), generating reactive intermediates such as radical species that eventually induce propagation reactions. The resulting polymerized products were integrated into nanowires with uniform diameter and length that can be isolated via development with appropriate organic solvents. Considering the widely applicable nature of STLiP to organic materials, the present technique opens a new door for access to a number of functional nanowires and their assembly.

WOS: 000322848900009, A novel experiment, aiming at demonstrating the feasibility of hypernuclear spectroscopy with heavy ion beams, was conducted. Using the invariant mass method, the spectroscopy of hypernuclear products of Li-6 projectiles on a carbon target at 2 A GeV was performed. Signals of the Lambda-hyperon and H-3(Lambda) and H-4(Lambda) hypernuclei were observed for final states of p + pi(-), He-3 + pi(-) and He-4 + pi(-), respectively, with significance values of 6.7, 4.7 and 4.9 sigma. By analyzing the proper decay time from secondary vertex distribution with the unbinned maximum likelihood fitting method, their lifetime values were deduced to be 262(-43)(+56) +/- 45 ps for Lambda, 183(-32)(+42) +/- 37 ps for H-3(Lambda), and 140(-33)(+48) +/- 35 ps for H-4(Lambda). (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved., Electronics Department of the Institute for Nuclear Physics of Mainz University; Helmholtz association as Helmholtz-University Young Investigators Group at GSI [VH-NG-239]; German Research Foundation (DFG) [SA 1696/1-1]; Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan [18042008]; EU FP7 Hadron-Physics-2 SPHERE; GSI Department of Accelerator; GSI Department of Experimental Electronics; GSI Department of the Detector Laboratory; GSI Department of the Target Laboratory, The authors would like to thank the GSI Departments of Accelerator, of Experimental Electronics, of the Detector Laboratory and of the Target Laboratory and the Electronics Department of the Institute for Nuclear Physics of Mainz University for supporting the project. The HypHI project is funded by the Helmholtz association as Helmholtz-University Young Investigators Group VH-NG-239 at GSI, and the German Research Foundation (DFG) under contract number SA 1696/1-1. The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas 449, and Grant-in-Aid for promotion of Cooperative Research in Osaka Electro-Communication University (2004-2006). This work is also supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan, Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research 18042008 and EU FP7 Hadron-Physics-2 SPHERE. A part of this work was carried out on the HIMSTER high performance computing infrastructure provided by the Helmholtz-Institute Mainz.

10th International Conference on Hypernuclear and Strange Particle Physics -- SEP 14-18, 2009 -- Tokai, JAPAN, WOS: 000276770500016, The HypHI Phase 0 experiment to demonstrate the feasibility of precise hypernuclear spectroscopy with induced reactions of heavy ion beams was performed at GSI in August and October in 2009, with a projectile of Li-6 at 2 A GeV impinged on carbon graphite target with a thickness of 8 g/cm(2). The experiment mainly aims to reconstruct events of H-3(Lambda), H-4(Lambda) and He-5(Lambda) by observing the pi(-) decay channel. Details of the HypHI Phase 0 experiment performed in August in 2009 will be discussed., Kyoto Univ, Global COE Program, J PARC Ctr, Japan Soc Promot Sci, RIKEN, Nishina Ctr Accelerator Based Sci

WOS: 000256012800016, PubMed ID: 18463401, evaluate the roles of CYP1A1 polymorphisms [Ile (462)Val and (TC)-C-6235 (MspI)] and deletion of GSTM1 and and GSTT1 in lung cancer development in Asian populations, a pooled analysis was conducted on 13 existing studies included in Genetic Susceptibility to Environmental Carcinogenesis database. This pooled analysis included 1,971 cases and 2,130 controls. Lung cancer risk was estimated as odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CD using unconditional logistic regression model adjusting for age, sex, and pack-year. The CYP1A1 C-6235 variant was associated with squamous cell lung cancer (TC versus TT: OR, 1.42; 95% CI, 0.96-2.09; CC versus TT: OR, 1.97; 95% CI, 1.26-3.07; P-trend = 0.003). In haplotype analysis, (462)Val-T-6235 and Ile-C haplotypes were associated with lung cancer risk with reference to the Ile-T haplotype (OR, 3.41; 95% CI, 1.78-6.53 and OR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.12-1.71, respectively). The GSTM1-null genotype increased squamous cell lung cancer risk (OR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.05-1.77). When the interaction was evaluated with smoking, increasing trend of lung cancer risk as pack-year increased was stronger among those with the CYP1A1 6235 TC/CC genotype compared with those with IT genotype (P-interaction = 0.001) and with the GSTM1-null genotype compared with the present type (Pinteraction 0.08, when no genotype effect with no exposure was assumed). These results suggest that genetic polymorphisms in CYP1A1 and GSTM1 are associated with lung cancer risk in Asian populations. However, further investigation is warranted considering the relatively small sample size when subgroup analyses were done and the lack of environmental exposure data other than smoking., NCI NIH HHS [2P50CA090440-06, P30CA047904-19S1]