The Stranger in My Mirror When I was a child, my grandmother used to say, "The border is something people draw on maps. Hunger, hope, and grief don't stop to check passports." I nodded whenever she said it, but I never truly understood. Years later, I found myself standing outside a small grocery shop in Johannesburg, watching a crowd shout at a man with a Zimbabwean accent. They called him names. They told him to go home. Some threw stones. I stood there and did nothing. In my mind, I justified it. They're taking jobs. They're making life harder. They don't belong here. I was Black. I was African. Yet somehow, I believed another Black African was less deserving than I was because he had crossed a border. A week later, load shedding hit our neighborhood. The only shop still open was the same Zimbabwean man's store. I went in because I needed bread. He greeted me with a smile. "How are you, brother?" Brother. Not stranger. Not South African. Not c...
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Three entirely new lifeforms discovered on space station
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A new species never seen before by science was discovered on the space station through advanced genetic testing.
Three new lifeforms have been discovered in different locations on the International Space Station (ISS), potentially offering researchers a new way to grow food in space.
American and Indian scientists have examined four bacterial strains from the station and found that the three belonged to a species previously unknown to science.
The rod-shaped bacteria were found roughly five years ago in different locations on the station: one on the surface of a dining table, one on an overhead panel at a research station, and another in the Cupola observatory dome.
Image:One was found inside the Cupola dome on the station
As the bacteria are proven to be able to survive the conditions of the ISS, they could contribute to humans growing food in space, according to the researchers.
University of Southern California geneticist Dr Swati Bijlani, who led the research, proposed naming the new species Methylobacterium Ajmalii in honour of Ajmal Khan, an Indian biodiversity scientist.
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The discovery was published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology and NASA believes the species offer enormous potential for growing food on missions to Mars.
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The species is involved in a number of essential agricultural processes, including nitrogen fixation, phosphate solubilisation, abiotic stress tolerance, plant growth promotion, and biocontrol activity against plant pathogens.
NASA's Dr Kasthuri Venkateswaran and Dr Nitin Kumar Singh said that the strains might possess "biotechnologically useful genetic determinants" for the growing of crops in space.
However, they cautioned that further experimental biology would be required to prove that the new species of bacteria is as much of a space farming game-changer as they suspect.
Image:The discovery, scientists say, could help with the growing of food for missions to Mars
"To grow plants in extreme places where resources are minimal, isolation of novel microbes that help to promote plant growth under stressful conditions is essential," they said.
"Since our group possess expertise in cultivating microorganisms from extreme niches, we have been tasked by the NASA Space Biology Program to survey the ISS for the presence and persistence of the microorganisms.
"Needless to say, the ISS is a cleanly-maintained extreme environment. Crew safety is the number one priority and hence understanding human/plant pathogens are important, but beneficial microbes like this novel Methylobacterium ajmalii are also needed."
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