The tiny jellyfish aboard space shuttle Columbia are acting a little weird in zero gravity, swimming in circles instead of bobbing up and down as they do in the Earth's oceans.
But the white rats aboard appear happy and healthy.The seven crew members are sharing space with 2,478 jellyfish and 29 rodents while conducting a variety of experiments designed to learn more about the effects of weightlessness on the body.
The rodents "are very healthy.
. . . Sometimes I wake them up to make sure they are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed," astronaut Millie Hughes-Fulford said Monday.
However, TV pictures have shown some of the jellyfish swimming in circles. Jellyfish on Earth use pulsing movements to travel upward and then sink when the pulsing stops. But things don't sink in zero gravity.
"I can definitely say that I see some gross differences," said Dorothy Spangenberg, the Earth-bound biologist who picked the jellyfish for the trip.
"Of course as a scientist though, I want to study every little animal in great detail . . . before I'll be able to come out with an evaluation of exactly what occurred in space."
Most of the jellyfish are polyps, in the first developmental stage of their lives.