SAN JOSE MINE, Chile – A team of NASA doctors and engineers recommended Friday that Chilean authorities regulate the day-and-night sleep patterns of 33 trapped miners, boost their Vitamin D intake and phase in an exercise program as their nutrition improves.

The NASA team is in Chile to help rescuers develop plans for maintaining the health of miners, who have been buried nearly a half-mile underground since a mine collapse on Aug. 5. The miners organized themselves and rationed food for more than two weeks until they were discovered alive on Aug. 22.

Since then, the miners have been receiving food, water and medicine through three bore-holes.

The NASA team, which spoke at a news conference late Friday, said regulating sleep patterns requires establishing a “lighted community area” that is always lit and a “dark sleeping area” that is always shuttered. Regulating the time the miners eat and exercise would help them get in a pattern, NASA experts said.

Geologists and engineers are working to open a rescue shaft to the workers, but the government has said it could take up to four months to drill the hole. Possible alternative plans, set to get under way over the next week, could be faster.

The team leader, Dr. Michael Duncan, said he is impressed by how Chilean rescuers are maintaining the men in the meantime and preparing them for what will be a harrowing rescue.

“They are basically writing the book on how to rescue this many people this deep and underground for so long,” Duncan said.

Underscoring the unprecedented nature of the rescue, Duncan said the protective cages that will be used to bring the men up must be specially made, and his team will participate in the design.

The miners are also getting support from a group of former rugby players who survived more than two months of isolation in the Andes four decades ago.

Ramon Sabella, Pedro Alcorta, Jose Inciarte and Gustavo Servino were among 16 Uruguayans who survived a plane crash in the snow-covered peaks and waited 72 days to be rescued. Some were forced to eat the flesh of friends killed in the crash to stay alive.

The four ex-players arrived Friday in the Chilean capital, Santiago, and met with President Sebastian Pinera.

Sabella said the group would visit the San Jose mine in the northern town of Copiapo on Saturday to deliver a message of hope and support from Uruguayan children.

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Astronauts
aboard the International Space Station won’t be throwing any burgers
on the grill this Labor Day weekend, but at least they’ll get the
U.S. holiday off — after they clean the space toilet.

Monday
is an official rest day for the space station crew, NASA spokesman
Kelly Humphries said. The three Americans and three Russians aboard
the station, however, won’t get to shirk their space duties all day.

“There’s
always some routine housekeeping and maintenance to do,”
Humphries told SPACE.com. “Toilets need to be cleaned, the water
recovery system needs to be checked — that sort of thing.”
[Graphic:
The International Space Station Explained]

Space
workouts and chores

The
space fliers also will put in some serious time at the gym. Station
crewmembers exercise for about 2.5 hours per day, six days a week to
help stave off the deleterious effects of microgravity — which can
include dramatic
muscle atrophy
and bone loss.

The
station’s gym includes a treadmill, a stationary bike and a
weight-training machine that generates up to 600 lbs. (273 kg) of
resistance using vacuum cylinders.

When
all this is done, the astronauts will be able to relax before hitting
the hay. And how do you wind down when you’re zooming around the
Earth at 17,000 mph (27,419 kph)?

“They’ll
look out the window,” Humphries said. “It may be a movie
day. If there’s a big sporting event, we may uplink a feed to the
station so they can watch it. It all depends on the crew.”

Picking
their holidays

Space
station
crews choose their days off together, before their missions begin,
Humphries said. Since the station has an international flavor — and
there’s often pressing work to be done at odd hours — American
astronauts don’t always enjoy the same days off as their
Earth-dwelling countrymen.

But
Americans on the station do tend to observe the big holidays. Last
year, for example, the crew took both Thanksgiving
and Christmas
off, celebrating
with holiday feasts.

Humphries
doesn’t know if the astronauts will mark Labor Day in any way —
with some sort of special
holiday message,
say, which they’ve done in the past.

“In
terms of special recognition, often that’s done on the fly,” he
said. “The crew often won’t give much advance notice because
they don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

When
they get back to work, next week should be busy for the station’s
crew. The astronauts will prepare for the arrival of the Russian
cargo vessel ISS Progress 39, which will deliver 2.5 tons of food,
fuel and other supplies. Progress 39 should dock at the station Sept.
10.

• Why
  Is It Called Labor Day?
• Graphic:
  Inside and Out: The International Space Station
• Video
  Show: Life on the International Space Station

• Original Story: Labor Day Weekend for Astronauts: Space Toilet Cleaning and Exercise

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WASHINGTON (AFP) – Physical exercise can reduce a genetic predisposition to obesity by an average of 40 percent, a new study showed.

The research challenges the notion that an inherited propensity to obesity is impossible to overcome and boosts the case for the benefit of more exercise for anyone looking to shed some weight.

The study, published in this week’s Public Library of American Science Medicine journal, is based on examination of 20,430 people living in Norwich, Britain.

It found most of the study’s participants inherited between 10 and 13 genetic variants known to increase the risk of obesity, with some inheriting as many as 17 variants, and others as few as six.

Using modelling techniques, the researchers found that each genetic variant was linked to an increase in body mass index (BMI) — a measure of body size based on both height and weight.

“Each additional genetic variant in the score was associated with an increase in BMI equivalent to 445 grams (1.6 ounces) in body weight for a person 1.70 meters (5.7 feet),” the study said.

For physically active individuals, the increase was just 379 grams (13 ounces).

That was “36 percent lower than in physically inactive individuals in whom the increase was 592 grams (21 ounces) per variant,” the research found.

Each additional variant also raised the individual’s chances of obesity 1.1-fold, but in physically active individuals, “the increased odds per variant for obesity risk were 40 percent lower.”

Ruth Loos of Britain’s Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit, who carried out the research, said the study “challenged deterministic view of the genetic predisposition to obesity.”

“Our findings further emphasize the importance of physical activity in the prevention of obesity,” Loos said.

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