9
votes
A study on mouse embryos grown in space suggests that the radiation and weightlessness of space might not pose immediate obstacles to mammalian reproduction
Link information
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- Title
- The first embryos from a mammal have now been grown in space
- Authors
- Saima S. Iqbal, Laura Sanders, Erin Garcia de Jesús, Tina Hesman Saey
- Published
- Nov 21 2023
- Word count
- 40 words
Very cool, but I’m not worried about the embryonic development so much as I am the formation of proper bone structure during the early stages of life
We’ll have to wait for the science to be done to know for sure of course, but I suspect there’s some kind of threshold where the pull of gravity is adequate for early development (with the body being able to adapt to different gravitational environments later in life without issue), and it seems unlikely that the threshold sits at exactly Earth levels.
Figuring out if such a threshold exists and what it is if it does exist is critical information for developing our long-term spacefaring abilities, and it’s a bit frustrating that there hasn’t yet been more work done on it. There should’ve been at least one rotating space station in orbit to study these things on by now.