8 weird things that happen to your body if you live in space for a year

Bill Ingalls/NASA

Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly.

In the name of science, former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly recently shoved himself into the top of a rocket, accelerated to 17,500 mph, and fell around Earth at that speed for 340 days - nearly an entire year.

The lack of gravity, radiation exposure, Kelly's diet, and other facts of life in orbit affected his body in significant ways - including, as NASA is learning now, even his genetic blueprint.

The Twin Study, which is still in progress, uses Scott Kelly's identical twin brother and fellow former astronaut, Mark Kelly, to unmask the subtle but important effects of long-duration space travel on the human body.

Business Insider's Dina Spector reported on some of the most fascinating preliminary results of the study, which NASA released at the end of January, including the possible existence of a "space gene."

Here are eight other biological oddities that happen to your body if you're in space for a year.