快猫短视频

ALMOST half of the baby rats sent into orbit by NASA on a mission devoted to
neurobiology have died鈥攁pparently because their mothers neglected
them.

On 16 April, the space shuttle Columbia blasted off for the Neurolab mission
(This Week, 11 April, p 18).
But within days, the youngest became dehydrated and
sickly. Only 45 of 96 rats aged one week or less at launch were still alive as
快猫短视频 went to press. Joe Bielitzki, NASA鈥檚 chief veterinary
scientist, says that the mothers do not seem to be grooming their
infants鈥攁nd dehydration suggests that the pups are not getting enough
milk. 鈥淢other rats don鈥檛 normally experience neonates that float away. After
she鈥檚 collected them for nursing for the fifteenth time, she鈥檒l give up,鈥� he
speculates.

Crew members have put the surviving pups on antibiotics and are trying to
rehydrate them by introducing droplets of isotonic sports drinks into their
cages for them to drink.

Kerry Walton, a physiologist at the New York University Medical Center, says
that she and other Neurolab investigators are discussing a tissue-sharing plan
that will allow them to complete their experiments if at least 29 of the
remaining baby rats survive. But Walton says that follow-up experiments planned
for rats kept alive for a year after their return to Earth may now have to be
abandoned.