Show of hands: who binge-watched the new season of Orange is the New Black over the weekend? Don’t worry, there’ll be no spoilers here, but if you made it to second episode and paid close attention, you might remember hearing something about cockroaches; specifically about how they were the first creatures to mate in space. Say what? As it turns out, Piper was speaking the truth. Russia sent some cockroaches into space to do the dirty back in September 2007 and got some surprising results.
According to Sputnik News, the cockroach, named Nadezhda (that means “hope”), conceived her space babies in microgravity during a 12-day trip on the Foton-M bio-satellite while in a sealed container with cameras rolling. She later gave birth back on Earth to 33 cockroach newborns, which is totally disgusting, after a normal gestation period. The babies were healthy and ate and drank and did whatever it is that cockroaches do as expected.
However, the cockroach offspring weren’t entirely normal. At first, the only noticeable abnormality was that the cockroaches’ exoskeleton, which is translucent at birth, darkened quicker than usual. But in a terrifying twist, Sputnik News reported they also grew faster and hardier than normal cockroaches. Russian scientist Dmitry Atyakshin said, “[We] have found out that the creatures…run faster than ordinary cockroaches, and are much more energetic and resilient.”
Apparently, cockroaches can give birth to several large batches of little ones with just one—erm—instance of impregnation. Nadezhda went on to give birth to two more litters, neither of which showed the same superpowers as the first.
Of course, the purpose of the experiments is eventually to figure out the viability of human conception and birth in space. But cockroaches are very different from humans because aside from the whole they-are-insects thing, they can withstand somewhere between six and fifteen times the radiation humans can, which is important in space, and can go about a month without food and without air for up to 45 minutes. So while you could call it progress, it seems all we’ve succeeded in doing is creating a super cockroach.
