Ask A Scientist© Biology Archive

name         Evan
status       student
age          12

   Question -   Does gravity effect a person's height?  How does it?  Would
people with back problems benefit from time in an anti-gravity environment?
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        Yes, gravity does effect one's height.  If you make a mark on the wall
just before you go to sleep of the highest point you can barely reach, you
will find that you can easily reach it when you wake up.  During the day,
we walk, run, etc.  This compacts the spine, slightly, decreasing your
height.  Sleep restores the spacing.  Over a lifetime, though, you do
shrink a little due to decades of forces.  Astronauts come back from
weightlessness just a bit taller.  It does not last long.

        There is no anti-gravity environment that we know of.

---Nathan A. Unterman


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