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the dragon cargo ship that is launching

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today is carrying a variety of supplies

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for the station and its crew members

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including several new experiments some

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of which are designed to learn more

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about how plants grow in weightlessness

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one of them is known by the acronym cara

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c-a-r-a

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and uh the principal investigator dr

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analisa paul of the university of

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florida is on the phone with me this

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morning to talk about that

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so it's an exciting day today because

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we've got this uh cargo craft that's

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going up and we've got we know we've got

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several uh lots of supplies and several

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experiments one of those experiments i

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wanted to talk to you about is cara we

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said this is an acronym can you tell us

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what cara stands for and generally what

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you are trying to find out in this

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investigation

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sure so cairo stands for characterizing

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arabidopsis root attractions and it is

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um

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flying a type of plant called

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arabidopsis phthaliana which is

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essentially a you know it's a model

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organism for plants it's what you might

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think of as the white mouse of the plant

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world and it is utilized in a lot of

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different ground studies as well as

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we've run a number of different space

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flight experiments with arabidopsis in

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the past what we're trying to find out

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with this particular experiment is some

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of the nuances that plants use to sense

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their environment as they grow

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without the cues that you normally have

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in place and so on the ground of course

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you've got gravity which

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roots growth towards gravity and shoots

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the leaf part grows away from gravity

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and the other major cue for growing on

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the ground is of course light and so

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what we're trying to do with this

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particular experiment is we are taking

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gravity out of the equation and looking

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how plants grow on the surface of these

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square auger plates

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um

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when the light source isn't a directed

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one as opposed to

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coming just from one direction and

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seeing how the roots and shoots grow in

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that very diffuse lighting environment

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of just slapped up against the bulkhead

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of the space station with uh with no

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gravity also to give them give them

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direction

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so tell me also we were just looking at

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a couple of pictures of these plants

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what kind of plants are you flying and

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then why did you pick them for this

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particular experiment

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so so they said these are arabidopsis

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phthaliana that's the genus and the

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species of these plants we usually just

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call them arabidopsis for short the um

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we chose those because as they said they

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are the model organism for plants they

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we know um everything about their genome

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it's been completely sequenced it's very

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well characterized on the the uh

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in ground experiments it's been used for

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just decades and decades in plant

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physiology plant molecular biology

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research

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in addition rob ferl and i my colleague

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in the in this business have done a

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number of different space flight

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experiments with this same plant and so

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every time we do an experiment we get

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answers and those answers then develop

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into new hypotheses and new questions

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and so the experiment that we're we're

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launching today with these plants is

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actually based on information that we

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got from the previous space flight

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experiment with these same type of type

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of plants tell me how will the station

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crew members be actually participating

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in the in the experiment what will they

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be doing with the plants

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well in two ways um one is that we

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part of what we would like to do is

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we're looking at the

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molecular biology of these plants and so

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not just how the roots grow but what

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governs the way they grow

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and part of the mechanism to do this is

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we've engineered these plants with

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something called the green fluorescent

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protein

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reporter gene that is

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essentially reports back to where

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certain genes are being engaged as the

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plant grows and develops it glows green

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but you have to have a special mechanism

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to see the fluorescence you can't just

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see it in regular light and so one of

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the things that we can do is use a

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device called the lmm for light

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microscopy module that's on station it's

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essentially a

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very sophisticated fluorescent

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microscope that is run

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by a glenn research center and so what

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the astronaut will do is they'll take

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one of the plates and there's there's

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there's a number of plates that are

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being flown but they'll take one of the

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specific plates that has been has some

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of these engineered plants on it and put

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it on the light microscopy module

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apparatus and then what we will do is

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we'll be traveling to glen research

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center to

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then use the microscope

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up there to manipulate what's on station

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and so the astronaut will put the plate

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on the microscope but then it will be

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managed by some of the engineers and

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scientists at glenn research center as

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we see what is glowing on orbit

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thank you so much for talking with me