The next SpaceX mission will carry insects and rodents to help scientists understand the effects of long-term life in space.
Source: Fruit Flies and Mice to Get New Home on Space Station, at Least Temporarily
Go Space X! I am a space geek I love the fact that we are recycling rocket engines. But this article in particular is interesting because it describes the links between fruit flies and humans.
Fruit flies (an insect) have many, many homologous (similar) enzymes and proteins as humans we are even spending money to send them into space in order to compare their reaction and heartbeats to long-term weightlessness because it will give us clues to our ability to survive in space. And yet we continue spraying insecticides all over everything with the assumption that what harms an insect won’t harm us.
Go figure.
Best to you all.