Monarch butterflies in space - Univ. of Kansas

Monarch Watch — a KU-based network of students, teachers, volunteers and researchers dedicated to study of the monarch butterfly — is providing caterpillars to NASA, along with a special artificial diet. If all goes according to plan, the insects will eat, grow and go through metamorphosis to emerge as adult butterflies in 17 days while in low Earth orbit.

Learn more about the mission at: http://www.news.ku.edu/2009/november/10/butterflies.shtml

Learn more about Monarch Watch at http://www.monarchwatch.org/

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Chip
• Taylor
• Space
• NASA
• Caterpillars
• Monarch
• Monarchs
• Butterfly
• Butterflies
• Watch
• KU
• University
• of
• Kansas
• Research
• Science
• Shuttle
• Mission
• Crew
• Test
• Tests
• Orbit
• Cocoon

[eight67five309]

oh my god its santa!

[allbeastveteran]

seeing how life reacts to less gravity is very important, one day that could be people living and growing in space.

[innocentTIVictim]

rofl. what happened to our world.

[banhotsu]

@greyshell77 Are you stupid? You really cant think of a reason to WHY tax dollars have been used to promote this?

[greyshell77]

Tax Dollars in Space.

[KUEndowment]

fyi, if you'd like to support Monarch Watch, go to the KU Endowment homepage >> Support Your Passion drop-down menu >> Special Initiatives >> Monarch Watch. Thanks!

[nolometangere]

Why monarchs? Why the specific species?

[2forceful]

How so?

[nyteshdw1]

Btw... good work ladies and gentlemen of this program. You're the inspiration the next generation needs to better prepare themselves for the challenges of a future of off-world living. As the future of off-world habitation unfolds the research you do today will pave the path of how we will live our lives in space for many generations to come.

[nyteshdw1]

Cont; The observations would most definitely show us a lot of useful information in regards to human childbirth in micro-gravity. Seems like a pretty darned important thing to figure out before we start pushing for everyone to live off-world to me after all.

[nyteshdw1]

The next step is taking sets of small mammalian species' up there to go through birthing cycles. It should be almost as easy an experiment as this one was/is. Conception would probably have to take place on the ground but, the rest could be managed up there.

[joyariffic]

this is really gross