Why did they expect Astronaut Scott Kelley's telomere shortening to accelerate? (they got longer!)
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The NPR News article and podcast Scientists Share Results From NASA's Twins Study says: SCOTT KELLY (NASA Astronaut): You know, the symptomatic stuff is fine. I don't have any long-term negative feelings, physically, from being in space. Now, there's the things you can't feel. And hopefully, I will never learn that those are a problem. GREENE (Host): Those things you can't feel - well, it turns out they are as small as the protective structures at the ends of his chromosomes. MARTIN (Host): Yeah. These are called telomeres, and normally, they get shorter with age. But what about in space? SUSAN BAILEY (Principle Investigator): What we wanted to do was evaluate telomere length in both of the twins before and after so that we could see, you know, where they st...