Conceiving a child in space may not be as easy as it has long been depicted in science fiction novels and movies, according to a joint study by scientists from Kobe and Hiroshima.
In Tuesday's edition of the American science magazine PLos One, the group reported that the growth of fertile eggs slows in a near-zero-gravity environment, lowering the birthrate by half when the eggs are put back into the wombs of mice.
The eggs of humans, as a mammal, could face the same problem, the scientists said.
The team used a special rotating container to replicate an environment with gravity only one-thousandth that of Earth.
"If we find out how much gravity is needed for a (human) fertile egg to grow, we may be able to know if a baby can be born at a lunar base," said Teruhiko Wakayama of Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, who headed the joint group with Hiroshima University.
