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TORONTO — Some researchers spend years working to conduct an experiment in space, but for a group of young Toronto scientists, all it took was a school project.

The four students were in grades 8 through 12 when they first proposed shooting a tube of microscopic worms into orbit so they could study the effects of low gravity on muscle deterioration.

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Now, the young women are all published scientists — half before earning a high-school diploma — after their experiment’s unexpected findings were featured in the peer-reviewed academic journal “Gravitational Space Research” last week.

“I never would have thought in Grade 8 that I would be doing something so meaningful with science,” Annabel Gravely, 16, said in a recent interview.

“The nature of science, it’s all about the obstacles. What’s really cool about the process is learning different ways to get around those obstacles.”

It all began four years ago when a teacher at the University of Toronto Schools put out a call for entries in a student competition to send an experiment to the International Space Station.