SKIRMISHER

A RUSSIAN cockroach called Nadezhda (Hope), which was made to breed in space, has given birth to the first creatures ever conceived in microgravity.

Nadezhda conceived during the Foton-M bio-satellite September 14-26 flight.

“We recently received the first batch of 33 cockroaches conceived in microgravity,” Dmitry Atyakshin said.

Though the newborn creatures already eat and drink respectively well, microgravity conditions may have had an impact on the natural darkening of their chitinous carapace, a part of a cockroach’s exoskeleton.

“Cockroaches are born with a transparent carapace, which gradually turns into brown, and the space cockroaches went darker earlier than usual,” the scientist explained, adding that final conclusions would only be able to drawn only after the second female had given birth.

“We are pleased by the very fact that they (the cockroaches) came into being,” Atyakshin added.

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