Jellyfish -- from undersea to outer space

A group of researchers, led by Dr. Dorothy B. Spangenberg of the Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) in Norfolk, VA, hoped to discover how humans might respond to a microgravity environment in outer space. In 1991, they sent 2,478 jellyfish polyps into space, in bags filled with artificial seawater on the space shuttle Columbia. The creatures multiplied, and by the end of the mission, there were 60,000 jellyfish orbiting the Earth.