China's Shenzhou-18 and Zebrafish Research in Space
TapTechNews May 20th news, China's Shenzhou-18 manned spaceship successfully went to the Chinese space station on April 26th, kicking off a new batch of about 6-month stay. The Shenzhou-18 crew will implement the first domestic in-orbit aquatic ecological research project, taking zebrafish and hornwort as the research objects, and establish a stably operating in-space self-circulating aquatic ecosystem in orbit, achieving a breakthrough in China's cultivation of vertebrates in space.
More than 20 days have passed. How are the zebrafish at the Chinese space station?
According to CCTV News, the 4 zebrafish at the Chinese space station are in good condition. The astronauts found that zebrafish showed abnormal directional behaviors such as upside-down swimming, rotational movement, and circling under microgravity. The researcher said, At first, when we found the fish swimming with its belly up, we thought there was a problem. Actually, it's because the fish can't feel gravity and starts to get confused about up, down, left, and right.
TapTechNews found out that zebrafish is a tropical freshwater fish, which is an important vertebrate model organism in the scientific research field, especially in the research of the regenerative ability of organisms. Zebrafish is convenient to breed, has a short reproductive cycle, large spawning amount, external fertilization of embryos, and external development, and the fertilized eggs are almost transparent. This characteristic greatly facilitates researchers and makes it suitable for scientific research, and has become a new favorite in life science research.
Zhong Hong'en, the deputy chief designer of the space application system of China's manned spaceflight project, also pointed out that in the future, China also plans to conduct experiments with mice at the space station, including the growth experiment of mice in space and the experiment of mice conceived in space after fertilization on the ground, hoping to study the possibility of human reproduction in space through these experiments.