NASA to investigate unknown fungus found growing on the space station Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4448508/NASA-investigate-unknown-fungus-space-station.html#ixzz4fSio5oR

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4448508/NASA-investigate-unknown-fungus-space-station.html#ixzz4fSj2NAvf

NASA is set to use a radical new 'tricorder' DNA sequencer to work out what a mysterious fungus found growing on the International Space Station is.
Astronauts have reported funding the strange microbial growths on walls and surfaces, and it has even clogged waterlines. 
Now, two instruments onboard will be used to analyse it in orbit, allowing mission controllers to work out how to deal with it

Currently, the only way to identify contaminants is to take a sample and send it back to Earth.
'We have had contamination in parts of the station where fungi was seen growing or biomaterial has been pulled out of a clogged waterline, but we have no idea what it is until the sample gets back down to the lab,' said Sarah Wallace, NASA microbiologist and the project's principal investigator at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

'On the ISS, we can regularly resupply disinfectants, but as we move beyond low-Earth orbit where the ability for resupply is less frequent, knowing what to disinfect or not becomes very important,' said Wallace.
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