Article: The 128 baby bobtail squid will be used as part of research into the effects of spaceflight on beneficial interactions between microbes and animals.
The squid have an immune system which is similar to that of humans.
Nasa says the experiment could support the development of protective measures to preserve astronaut health during long space missions.
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It's a subplot in Manifold Time that on near-future Earth, some genetically engineered squids with something approaching human-level intelligence get sent up to space to help mine asteroids in lieu of acceptable AI/automation. The guy running the company gets distracted by a bit of mathematical tomfoolery allegedly proving the Earth is statistically doomed in the next 200 years (bastardised version of the Doomsday argument) and he should put all his effort into searching for neutrino messages sent backwards in time that might have a solution. Such a message is coincidentally detected with the origin point of inside an asteroid and so the space squid project is redirected to that asteroid instead of its original plan at which point the main plot about the time travel device and future humanity unravels. The squids are subsequently more or less abandoned by their human masters but manage to exist for a time on their own, slowly expanding their asteroid habitat with the skills they were taught/programmed with and breeding amongst themselves as a race of extra-terrestrial super squids.
