{"id":1094058,"date":"2026-07-17T03:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T03:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1094058\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T03:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T03:12:16","slug":"chinese-scientists-have-bad-news-on-having-babies-in-space-but-there-is-a-silver-lining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1094058\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese scientists have bad news on having babies in space. But there is a silver lining"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If the future of humanity lies in the vast expanse of space, could humans actually <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/science\/article\/3353304\/china-sends-embryos-orbit-find-out-if-humans-can-have-babies-space?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">perpetuate the species<\/a> beyond Earth?<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">As a team of Chinese scientists has discovered \u2013 the outlook is not very positive.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The researchers used two of China\u2019s Tianzhou cargo spacecraft missions to culture and study the differentiation of human reproductive cells in space.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Early-stage human reproductive cells did not grow or develop nearly as well in space as on Earth, the team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences\u2019 Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics and Beijing\u2019s Tsinghua University found.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In space, the success rate of generating the earliest precursor germ cells falls by around half, while early sperm-producing cells multiply over 25 per cent more slowly, according to their findings published in Science Advances on July 15. The outcome was attributed largely to microgravity and cosmic radiation.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The study marks the world\u2019s first successful differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into germ cells in a space environment, according to the paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the future of humanity lies in the vast expanse of space, could humans actually perpetuate the species&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1094059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3844],"tags":[3801,1395,17854,14787,875,91276,70,234366,47141,12022,413,24350,298712,41327,16,15,49],"class_list":["post-1094058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-chinese-academy-of-sciences","tag-cold-war","tag-earth","tag-humanity","tag-science","tag-shanghai-institute-of-technical-physics","tag-south-china-morning-post","tag-soviet-union","tag-space","tag-tiangong","tag-tianzhou","tag-tsinghua-university","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116933135337069161","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1094059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}