Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!UMAB.BITNET!CHUNTER From: CHUNTER@UMAB.BITNET (Colin Hunter) Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Re: Babies born in space Message-ID: Date: 15 Mar 89 03:57:07 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 23 From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu writes > I saw a report recently that had a Get-Away-Special mission that was >sending up half of a set of ``identical'' chicken eggs, the other half >staying on the ground as a control group. While not exactly human >development, I'd say it's certainly a first step in such research. This sounds like an almost useless experiment if the intention is to extrapolate the results they will obtain to human foetal development. Earlier postings suggesting sending up pregnant rats were bad enough. There are just so many differences between human and rat embryology (gestational period, placental structure and brain development, to name but a few) that proposing to use rats as a suitable model for human pregnancy would give results that would be next to meaningless as far as humans are concerned. Pregnancy is such a species specific phenomenon that the only model I would lend any credence to as far as humans are concerned would be the chimpanzee. The egg experiment could be of use in investigating avian (and maybe eve reptillian) embryogenesis and would obviously be of interest if a colony wanted to maintain chickens as livestock for food. Beyond that, this idea is strictly for the birds.