Mouse sperm stored on International Space Station produces healthy offspring
The Hindu
Solar flares from the surface of the Sun generate particles that can have particularly devastating impacts on human health and penetrate current generation spaceships.
Japanese researchers found mouse sperm exposed to high levels of cosmic radiation for nearly six years produced a large brood of healthy, unremarkable "space pups." was published Friday in Science Advances. The sperm was stored in the International Space Station in freeze-dried form. Once brought back to Earth and rehydrated, it resulted in the birth of 168 young, free of genetic defects. Developmental biologist and lead author Teruhiko Wakayama told AFP on Thursday that there was little difference between mice fertilised by space sperm and sperm that had remained confined to our planet. "All pups had normal appearance," he said, and when researchers examined their genes "no abnormalities were found."![](/newspic/picid-1269750-20250212004700.jpg)
In a study published in the journal Mammalian Biology on December 23, 2024, researchers compared the calls of Asian elephants based on their age, sex, and behaviour. They found the duration of trumpets remained fairly consistent across all age classes for both male and female Asian elephants but roars and roar-rumbles got longer with age.
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The STS-63 mission, more popularly dubbed as the near-Mir mission, was a successful mission that spanned from February 3-11, 1995. A mission that served as a dress rehearsal for later missions that would rendezvous and dock with Mir, STS-63 reeled off a number of firsts. A.S.Ganesh tries and lists them out for you…