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Good news: space bacteria (probably) aren’t evolving to destroy us
好消息！太空细菌可能无法进化到毁灭我们的地步
Microbes on ISS are changing their genes, but don’t worry.
在国际空间站上，微生物们的基因正在改变，但是不用担心。
We’ve all read science fiction stories about a disease going rogue on a space ship, decimating the crew. While space holds plenty of other terrors, new research suggests that bacteria we bring with us from Earth are more likely to evolve to survive alongside the spaceship’s human crew.
某种疾病在太空飞船上爆发肆虐，杀死飞船上所有人员，我们都读过类似情节的科幻小说。尽管太空中有着其它许多恐怖的东西，但新的研究表明，我们从地球带来的细菌更有可能进化成与太空飞船上的人类宇航员共同生存的细菌。
Hartmann and her colleagues compared the genomes of microbes from the International Space Station and ones here on Earth. Unlike humans, who generally carry the same genes, bacteria can differ—even within the same species.
Hartmann和她的同事们比较了国际空间站上和地球上微生物的基因组。与通常携带相同基因的人类不同，细菌的基因甚至在同一物种内也可以有不同。
Of course, not all humans are identical, but we all carry the same kinds of genetic information: we may have brown or blue eyes, but almost all of us are born with the genes that create peepers of some sort. For bacteria, “it would sort of be the equivalent of some of the bacteria in a species having wings and some having arms,” says Hartmann.
当然了，并非所有的人类基因都是相同的，但我们都携带着同一种遗传信息：我们可能有棕色或者蓝色的眼睛，但几乎所有人都天生自带创造某种眼睛的基因。而对于细菌来说，“这就有点像同一种细菌中有的长了翅膀，有的却长了手臂，”哈特曼说道。
“Our findings suggest that the most crucial bacterial functions involved in this potential adaptive response are specific to bacterial lifestyle and do not appear to have direct impacts on human health,” the researchers write.
研究人员写道：“我们的研究结果表明，在这种潜在的适应性反应中，细菌最关键的功能只特定于（改变）细菌的生活方式，应该不会对人类健康产生直接影响。”
It’s a promising set of first results, but we can’t assume the estimated one trillion species of microbes on Earth will all behave the same way in space. “Bacterial diversity is huge,” Hartmann says. She hopes further research can expand the comparison by analyzing other bacteria, and doing experiments to try to replicate the changes in lab environments.
这是一组很美好的初步结果，但我们不能因此就认为地球上大约一万亿种微生物在太空中都会有这样的行为。Hartmann表示“细菌的种类极其多样。”她希望进一步研究，通过分析其它细菌来扩大这一对比度，并通过做实验来尝试复制实验室环境中（细菌发生）的变化。
Hartmann’s team “did a really good job,” says David Coil, a UC Davis microbiologist who studies the ISS.
加州大学戴维斯分校研究国际空间站的微生物学家David Coil称，Hartmann团队“做得非常好”。
All built environments have microbes, says Hartmann, because they contain life—it’s just a matter of figuring out how to best live with them, rather than trying to wipe them all out.
Hartmann说道，所有的人造环境都存在微生物，因为这种环境中存在生命。我们需要解决的问题是如何最有利于我们地和它们生活在一起，而不是试图将它们全部消灭。
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