Greetings dear Asgardians.

I want to create a topic in which we can discuss ideas and problems that related to biophysics. I think that this an important direction in science, especially for space technologies. Here, I propose to introduce yourself if you are scientist and work in fields that related to biophysics or if interested in such work. I think that we can cooperate and successfully solve many scientific problems that will enable us to explore the world beyond the borders of our planet and to move toward our dreams.

So, I will start from introducing myself. My name is Artem and I'm from Ukraine. I have done my scientific work in International Center for Molecular Physiology (Dnipropetrovsk Division), National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Ukraine) and recently got a PhD degree. My research interests relate not only to Biophysics, but also genetics, development of cybernetic prosthesis, etc..

Artem, you sound like an ideal person to have a lead role in this topic. You could begin by defining / describing biophysics and identifying some topics most pertinent to permanent habitats in space. I think conventional and non-conventional agriculture would be of particular interest, especially for lighting requirements and yield per unit of floor area.

Okay, I will try to tell a little bit more about biophysics and how I see it's application.

Good definition of biophysics give us Wikipedia: "Biophysics or biological physics is an interdisciplinary science that applies the approaches and methods of physics to study biological systems. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. Biophysical research shares significant overlap with biochemistry, physical chemistry, nanotechnology, bioengineering, computational biology, biomechanics and systems biology."

In more simple words I can say that biophysics try to understand and explain how works living organisms. Describe various processes on different levels of organization. For example, from the macroscopic point of view, biophysics can give precise picture of human movement, show where is the center of the mass, what forces act on the whole body when we move. At the same time it also can explain what happens on microscopic level, how different molecules and proteins interact with each other, and how all that lead to the movement of whole organism.

So, knowing how our bodies works on Earth we can try to predict difficulties that we can encounter in another conditions, and propose different ways to fix that. Honestly, I think that humanity cannot travel through space without changing ourselves, our organism is adapted for Earth conditions and create space station, on which will be recreated Earth conditions much more difficult, compare to changing ourselves. We can "modify" ourselves genetically, replace some of body parts or organs by cybernetic or try to completely move our mind in to cybernetic body. This is the way, that will lead us to the stars.

For the next step I propose to chose a topic that you like, maybe we should organize something like poll, where anyone can propose theme for discussion?

P.S. Here I tried to briefly explain what is biophysics and my ideas about its general application. I don't know level of education of people who will read this, so I tried to avoid specific terminology this time. Sorry if I give a bad example, I tried to make it as simple as possible. And also forgive me if I make grammatical or other mistakes, english is not my native language.

My name is Shen and im living in costa rica. I am not in the best situation right now, my life is minimal, but I would love to go back to school to study Biophysics. I would be highly interested in working and learning as much as i could in these fields. I was a licensed healthcare provider practicing in natural medicines for 10 years and have taken it upon myself to begin studying as much as i could online about microbiology and its varying roles in all life on Earth. It is beyond facsinating to me and i would like to understand more. I have even started my own live cultured probiotic/prebiotic supplement business here in costa rica, but i would love to work with biophysics if it meant helping to build Asgardia

Hi Shen, I'm glad that you interested in this topic and ready to work. The first idea, that come into my mind after reading your post, about project that may be useful for Asgardia and also interesting for you, it's searching information about microorganisms that living in human body and after that researching their behavior in unusual situations.

It is well known that a lot microorganisms in our body help us in some way, other can cause diseases. Modern scientific researches tell us that disappearing of one type of bacteria in our gastrointestinal tract may cause a diseases. And it is a very difficult task to understand how we can maintain populations of microorganisms on a certain level, that will be useful for us.

Thanks for the tip in direction! This past week i have been studying the specific roles of common LAB. Ive read quite a few downloadable PDFs regarding MRS, ideal alternative mediums to MRS, which LAB were better at breaking down a variety of carbohydrates, genome and epigenome, etc..

I dont have access to many of the required tools and ingredients, but it has been fun trying to recreate certain experiments. It would be cool to have some lab equipment to practice culturing and sub-culturing, but for now i can read various science and case reports online from scientist who have already done the experiments.

I think it would be so cool to study the different effects of space on microorganisms...Either way, we will be bring microorganisms in space with us and im not sure we fully understand the long term effects space will have on the microorganisms we rely on for optimal function

Im going to continue researching as much as i can about the behavioral traits of common microorganism.

como es la mejor manera de experimentar con la biofisica? que odjetivo se debe tener?

Hi fabiangb. I remind you that main language on the forum is english. Now, if I properly translate your message, I may propose next algorithm. At first you should identify in which area you want provide some experiments, because biophysics is a very wide part of science, it may starts from analysis of whole organism, it can be animal or bacteria, and stops only on molecular level, at analysis of behavior of the different enzymes and ion channels. And there is a wide amount of different tools for experiments, all depends from your goal and capabilities, you may use precision equipment for patch clamp experiments or just your computer for mathematical modeling.

Shen_Xian I'm glad that can help you a little bit. If you have any questions or propositions about experiments you may write them here and maybe we can find the best solutions.