Toggle light / dark theme

In the ongoing quest for human habitation on the Moon, the issue of cleanliness within spacesuits is a critical one. Future astronauts venturing to the lunar surface will be equipped with a new generation of spacesuits designed to endure the harsh lunar environment, thanks to the European Space Agency’s PExTex project.

However, as these suits provide safety and comfort, they could also offer a conducive environment for harmful microbial growth. This issue is further exacerbated as astronauts may potentially share these suits.

PExTex is addressing this issue by assessing suitable textiles for future spacesuit designs. Collaborating with the Austrian Space Forum, they have launched a project named BACTeRMA. This project is focusing on ways to prevent microbial growth within the inner linings of the suits.

We should not be surprised if such changes occur. Summer was not always about the seaside and sunbathing. True, there is a long tradition, dating back at least to the Romans, of leaving the city for the seashore in the summer months. Baiae, on the northern tip of the Gulf of Naples, was a favorite haunt of the emperors Augustus, Nero and Caligula. (According to Seneca the Younger, it was a “harbor of vice.”) But activities such as swimming in the sea and stripping semi-naked to lie on the beach are of quite recent provenance.

Moreover, the seaside is not an appealing summer location in much of the world. No sweat-soaked imperial civil servant in British-ruled India would have chosen the Bay of Bengal as his preferred holiday destination. The only way to escape the heat of the summer was — as Rudyard Kipling described — to flee the plains and head northwards to Himalayan “hill stations” such as Simla.

Now that summer in more and more of the world is as searingly hot as India in Kipling’s time, we are all going to have to take a leaf out of his book. The hill station is coming back, and this time it’s global.

Our memories may not be as reliable as we think. Once we experience an event, most of us likely assume that those memories stays intact forever. But there is the potential for memories to be altered or for completely false memories to be planted, according to Elizabeth Loftus, PhD. Loftus, a distinguished professor at the University of California, Irvine, is an expert on human memory and she discusses how our recollections of events and experiences may be subject to manipulation.

The American Psychological Association is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with more than 118,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students as its members.

To learn more about APA visit http://www.apa.org.

Follow APA on social media: