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SCIENCEThursday 21 January 2016
Astronaut nurses zinnia to full bloom after mold invasion
MARCIA DUNN This image made available by NASA via Twitter posted by space greenhouse. Mission Con- summer. The space station
AP Aerospace Writer station commander Scott Kelly, shows a zinnia flower out in the trol gave him free rein, and crew got to sample a few
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. sun at the International Space Station. Last month, Kelly had to he managed to save some leaves.
(AP) — The International fight off mold that threatened to kill all the flowers in the space of the crop. While this is the first zinnia
Space Station now has station’s mini-greenhouse. This type of autonomous known to bloom in space,
a bright pop of orange, gardening will be neces- it’s not the first space flow-
thanks to commander (Scott Kelly/NASA via AP) sary during Mars expedi- er.
Scott Kelly’s green thumb. tions, Kelly noted. In 2012, space station as-
Kelly showed off his gar- In a nod to last year’s tronaut Donald Pettit mem-
dening results — a thriving blockbuster movie “The orably coaxed blooms out
zinnia with a beautiful or- Martian,” Kelly said, “I’m of a zucchini plant, blog-
ange-yellow bloom — over going to have to channel ging about his informal
the weekend. He posted my inner Mark Watney.” experiment in “Diary of a
photos of the flower on his Watney is the fictitious as- Space Zucchini.”
Twitter account. tronaut-botantist who ends He also nurtured Space
“Yes, there are other life up stranded alone on Mars Sunflower and Space Broc-
forms in space!” Kelly said and grows potatoes in or- coli.
in a tweet. der to survive. The Russians hold claim to
Last month, Kelly had to The space station’s plant- the first flower in space,
fight off mold that threat- growing experiment previ- aboard the Soviet Salyut
ened to kill all the flowers ously saw a bumper crop space stations of the 1970s
in the space station’s mini- of red romaine lettuce last and 1980s. q
Grisly fossils from Kenya reveal a 10,000-year-old massacre
MALCOLM RITTER Researchers said the dis- or six cases of apparent ar- thereafter. The 12 bodies were adults,
AP Science Writer covery casts light on the row wounds to the head or Two skeletons didn’t show and at least four were fe-
NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists poorly understood roots of neck, and five cases where evidence of violence but male. The site also revealed
have found grisly evidence warfare. the head was smashed the position of the hands partial remains of at least
of a massacre in Kenya Evidence of violence ap- with something like a club. suggested they might have 15 other people.
about 10,000 years ago, peared in 10 of 12 relatively One skull had a sharpened been tied up at the time of The 2012 discovery, made
providing rare evidence of complete fossil skeletons stone still embedded. death. west of Lake Turkana, was
violence between groups the scientists found by what The researchers said the One was a woman who reported by scientists at
in ancient hunter-gatherer used to be the edge of a wounds would have been was pregnant or had re- Cambridge University and
societies. lagoon. That included five fatal immediately or soon cently given birth. elsewhere.q
