Monday, September 14, 2009

All the popular topics

Sex in space could be the key to the survival of humans | The Japan Times Online

Here's an article made for this blog: it features rats, sex, space flight, and the future of humanity.

I didn't know this:

In 1979, the Cosmos 1129 space mission, also known as Bion 5, was a joint collaboration between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was primarily a biomedical program, and on this particular mission male and female rats were sent into space and allowed to do what comes naturally.

Whatever problems there might be with having sex in microgravity, floating in space, the rats managed it. I'm not surprised really. If you've ever dissected a male rat in biology class you'll have noted the size of their testicles: I'm sure that given a sniff of a female, even a rat floating in orbit round our planet would try to get it on.

Two other species were on board Bion 5, by the way: the Japanese quail, and some carrots. But my concern here is with the rats. When they returned to Earth, the female rats were examined. Two had become pregnant, but they did not give birth. Apparently the space-embryos were reabsorbed.

The concern is that humans may not reproduce well under less than 1 G.

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