Mouse sperm stored on International Space Station produces healthy ‘space pups’, Japanese researchers find
- The sperm was stored in the International Space Station in freeze-dried form. Once back on Earth and rehydrated, it resulted in the birth of 168 healthy mice
- ‘All pups had normal appearance,’ said developmental biologist Teruhiko Wakayama of the University of Yamanashi in Japan
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”.
Their study was published on Friday in Science Advances.
The sperm was stored in the International Space Station (ISS) in freeze-dried form. Once brought back to Earth and rehydrated, it resulted in the birth of 168 young mice, free of genetic defects.
Developmental biologist and lead author Teruhiko Wakayama said 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”.
In 2013, Wakayama and colleagues at the University of Yamanashi in Japan launched three boxes, each containing 48 ampoules of freeze-dried sperm, to the ISS for the long-term study.