Thursday, 07 July 2011 15:08
Our Irish visitor’s osteoporosis work continues on last-ever space shuttle flight
Many moons ago, our agency was involved in bringing a NASA astronaut to Ireland to talk about the research he was helping conduct in space on bone wasting. Persuading Dan Tani (pictured) to cross the Atlantic was helped by the fact that his wife was from Cobh. And the talks he gave to our osteoporosis meetings about life on board the space shuttle were out of this world. Given this link to Ireland, it was interesting to read that NASA’s commitment to investigating bone-wasting has persisted right up to the agency’s last ever space shuttle flight. When Atlantis launched on July 8, it carried 30 extra mini-passengers who are being treated with a new-generation osteoporosis treatment as part of a new study into bone-density preservation.
