“Chinese researchers have sent human embryo models into space to study how microgravity and radiation affect early human development. The models are lab-grown stem-cell structures that mimic early embryo development, but cannot grow into viable fetuses,” notes The Doomslayer. “The results could have big implications for our ability to set up self-sustaining colonies on the moon and Mars.”
Scientific American reports:
A clutch of artificial human embryos on China’s Tiangong space station could help researchers better understand whether human pregnancies in space are possible and safe.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences says the experiment marks the first study on human artificial embryos in space. The artificial embryos are actually structures derived from stem cells, and they mimic how embryos form during the early days of pregnancy. These structures wouldn’t be able to develop into humans even if they were implanted into a uterus. Researchers originally conceived these artificial embryolike structures as a model to study the earliest moments of development because of widespread international rules aimed at restricting research on real human embryos that are older than two weeks after fertilization.
“The human artificial embryo is made of human stem cells as raw materials,” said project leader Yu Leqian. “This is not a real human embryo and does not have the ability to develop into an individual. However, it can serve as a model for studying early human development.”
The artificial embryos were launched to the Tiangong space station earlier this month, and a control group is being examined in an Earth-based lab. The experiment was designed to last for five days, after which the samples onboard the space station were frozen. They will eventually be returned to Earth for analysis.
Fertility in space has long been an object of study, and the results so far have been mixed. In 1994 NASA astronauts successfully mated Japanese rice fish onboard a space shuttle. Yet several other experiments conducted on fruit flies in low-Earth orbit suggested the insects’ larvae had a higher death rate in that environment than on Earth. A past effort to raise mice embryos in space didn’t succeed either, and attempts at mating rats also failed to result in pregnancies. And in 2014 another mating experiment involving geckos almost ended in disaster after the Russian satellite they were on lost contact with ground control. While contact with the spacecraft was reestablished, the geckos perished before they could possibly make more geckos.
In 2023, scientists grew “an entity that closely resembles an early human embryo, without using sperm, eggs or a womb,” reported the BBC.
Medicine is advancing in other ways as well. A woman who was previously unable to have children recently received her sister’s womb in the first womb transplant in England. Artificial intelligence is now developing highly-effective antibodies to fight disease. Doctors overseas are using artificial intelligence to detect cases of breast cancer more effectively.
Scientists recently developed a treatment for alcoholism that reduces drinking by 90% among the lab monkeys it was tested on.
An elderly man in Montana was sentenced to six months in prison for creating giant hybrid sheep.
