Glow-in-the-Dark Plants Are Highlight of International Space Station Science Briefing

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Feb. 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will shed light on plant investigations aboard the International Space Station in a briefing at 12 p.m. EST, Friday, Feb. 5. The briefing from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida will be broadcast live on NASA Television.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO)

The upcoming shuttle mission, planned to launch Feb. 7, will continue assembling the space station so it can be used for continuous scientific research as a national and multinational laboratory.

Microgravity plant growth experiments conducted aboard the station will help prepare for long-duration spaceflights of the future. The use of miniaturized green fluorescent proteins that glow in the dark and associated compact imaging systems may be used to help monitor crop conditions on Earth.

The briefing participants are:

• Julie Robinson, International Space Station Program scientist, NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston
• Robert Ferl, principal investigator of Transgenic Arabidopsis Gene Expression System at the University of Florida, Gainesville
• Wagner Vendrame, International Space Station National Laboratory investigator for National Lab Pathfinder-Cells at the University of Florida, Homestead
• Perry Johnson-Green, senior program scientist, Life and Physical Sciences, Canadian Space Agency

NASA has published a new Web feature that provides examples of space station research dividends such as those related to cancer treatment delivery, food poisoning vaccine development, air purification, remote ultrasound tests and more.

For more information about space station science payoffs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/coolstation.html

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about the upcoming shuttle mission, designated STS-130, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

SOURCE NASA