Nadezhda got to know life in the hallways of a bureaucratic building in southwestern Russia before being assigned to conduct a unique experiment in space.
Suddenly, her unknown life – where she was just trying to avoid hunger and the thick rubber of her shoes – was elevated to a higher purpose. She would become a mother, and she would show the world what happens when twins are formed in outer space.
The Effect of Space on Cockroach Reproduction
When Nadezhda returned, everyone at the Medical Problems Institute in Voronezh, Russia, was waiting for her and observing her, as she was considered less than laboratory rats.
Then the day came: 33 cockroaches were born, and they exhibited unusual mutations. They were larger, ran faster, and even looked different from their Earth-bound counterparts. While the exoskeletons of the typically born tiny living beings are usually transparent, those born from Nadezhda already showed a dark red-brown coat.
“It’s like a sci-fi horror movie in the making, when you think about it,” said Alex Leyndyker, founder of the Institute for Sexual Space Research, to Mashable. “Two random cockroaches disappear in this spaceship, and they keep reproducing and reproducing.”
The Effect of Space on Medaka Fish Reproduction
The experiments on medaka fish represented the first evidence of mating, fertilization, and hatching of vertebrate animal eggs in space in 1994.
The medaka fish, also known as Japanese rice fish, were chosen for the space experiment because this species seemed more tolerant to the absence of “up” or “down” in microgravity.
The experiment resulted in four fish laying 43 eggs. Of these, eight hatched in space, and 30 others were born after landing. The offspring appeared normal – with the expected numbers of germ cells present in the ovaries of the newly hatched young – and some were even able to produce their own offspring upon their return to the planet.
The Effect of Space on Frog Reproduction
The same snail behaviors were observed in frog larvae aboard the Endeavour space shuttle in 1992, where the larvae swam in circles and loops and darted in random directions. The larvae also struggled to find air bubbles in the tanks to fill their lungs. While the experiment was considered a success story in the mass media, the head and eye swelling of frog larvae was documented in scientific journals.
In an amphibian study two years later, four female African clawed frogs were injected with a hormone that triggers ovulation after reaching low Earth orbit. NASA astronauts placed sperm from male frogs on the eggs, causing many of them to be fertilized.
While the experiment was considered a success story in the mass media, the head and eye swelling of frog larvae was documented in scientific journals. Some researchers who studied them in a weightless condition also noted these issues and suggested that the large heads may be due to defects in the neural tube, which forms the brain and spinal cord early on. The growth of the larvae seemed to stop, not just in space but also after their return to Earth’s gravity.
The Effect of Space on Other Animal Reproduction
Animals were chosen for study based on logistics in some cases. For example, the salamander is a good model for space experiments because females can retain viable sperm for up to five months. This long period allows scientists to fertilize them on Earth, then carry out fertilization, with the help of a hormone injected, later in space.
Reptiles are among the least studied organisms in space, although the thick-fingered salamander took trips aboard the uncrewed Foton-M3 in 2007 and Bion-M1 in 2013. They were chosen because their sticky feet help them adhere to surfaces in microgravity. When the salamanders returned, scientists found partially unfertilized egg remains in their habitats.
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It remains unclear whether lizard reproduction can occur in space. In 2014, a 60-day space mission was restricted to the Russian Foton-M4, which caught the attention of John Oliver on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” due to issues with the mission, including a temporary loss of contact with the satellite. All five decorative day geckos on board the unmanned vehicle, or “sex lizards” as Oliver called them, died before landing, likely due to freezing according to later reports.
Quail eggs may seem like a bizarre way to conduct experiments on the reproduction and development of animals in space, but the experiments date back to 1979 when the Soviet Union sent quail eggs aboard Cosmos-1129. Reports from the state news agency TASS stated that the Soviet space program was attempting to determine if quail could be a food source for astronauts. Apparently, most of the eggs shattered upon landing.
However, they continued to try over the years. While some chicks could survive the incubation period, hatch rates were low, and many embryos showed defects in their eyes, brains, and beaks. Additionally, the birds raised aboard the Mir space station did not peck properly, a potential sign of balance issues. A long list of defects was observed across multiple experiments, including muscle hypertrophy and underdeveloped thyroid glands. Space studies related to quail eggs date back to 1979.
Space’s Impact on Rodent Reproduction
Most previous studies on mammals have involved mice. Despite NASA’s reluctance to discuss and study sex, the agency collaborated with the National Institutes of Health on Space Shuttle missions to study the development and postnatal health of rodents in space.
In two missions, 10 pregnant mice were launched mid-gestation and landed just a few days before the end of the full term. The baby mice born after the flights exhibited delays in the development of their brains and key sensory and motor systems, including their eyes, ears, noses, and balance centers.
In a third study of rodents, groups of young rats aged five days, eight days, and fourteen days were flown in space. Although the larger group fared better health-wise, only 10 percent of the five-day-old adult rats survived. While 90 percent of the eight-day-olds lived, their body weight was about 25 percent less than normal. The fourteen-day-olds survived and were similar to the young rats in the ground control group of the same age. This may indicate that the space environment has a significantly negative impact on early developmental stages.
But experts like Leindeker emphasize that no mammals have been born in space yet, making it impossible to guess how fertilization and placental formation would occur far from our home planet.
“There isn’t enough data from those experiments to give us an objective understanding of the whole issue,” he said.
Source: https://me.mashable.com/space/34169/weird-stuff-happens-when-animals-reproduce-in-space
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