🚀 go-pugleaf

From:

m.cs.uiuc.edu!s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu writes

> I saw a report recently that had a Get-Away-Special mission that was
>sending up half of a set of ``identical'' chicken eggs, the other half
>staying on the ground as a control group. While not exactly human
>development, I'd say it's certainly a first step in such research.

This sounds like an almost useless experiment if the intention is to
extrapolate the results they will obtain to human foetal development. Earlier
postings suggesting sending up pregnant rats were bad enough. There are just
so many differences between human and rat embryology (gestational period,
placental structure and brain development, to name but a few) that proposing
to use rats as a suitable model for human pregnancy would give results that
would be next to meaningless as far as humans are concerned. Pregnancy is such
a species specific phenomenon that the only model I would lend any credence to
as far as humans are concerned would be the chimpanzee.

The egg experiment could be of use in investigating avian (and maybe eve
reptillian) embryogenesis and would obviously be of interest if a colony
wanted to maintain chickens as livestock for food. Beyond that, this idea is
strictly for the birds.