Pets in Space? It's Possible

C. elegans

According to an article published in Discovery News on November 30th, C. elegans, a worm species survived in space for over 12 generations.The microscopic worm thrived and reproduced during six months aboard the space station.  It says that scientists take this as a clue for possibility of human life , beyond earth, as well. "Clearly worms are not people," said Nathaniel Szewczyk, an associate professor in the Division of Clinical Physiology at The University of Nottingham, told Discovery News. "Yet C. elegans and man have roughly the same size genome and as many as 50 percent of genes are conserved or identical between this worm and man."
"The main reason for studying worms is that it is faster and easier to study them than man," added Szewczyk, who co-authored a study about the worms in the latest issue of the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

Source:Discovery News