We’ve told you about two rather peculiar experiments being overseen by Japanese astronauts at the International Space Station: the planned launch of a paper airplane into Earth’s atmosphere and the successful flight of a boomerang inside the station. Well, the Japanese have now topped themselves.

Japanese brewery Sapporo Holdings plans to brew beer using barley grains that were stored on the space station in 2006. The process will yield about 100 bottles. Scientists - whose focus, to be fair, has been on the effects of space travel on the grain, not on the beer - say the experiment will yield important data about growing food in space. This might become necessary as humans spend longer and longer periods traveling the solar system.

(Source: Agence France-Presse)

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