Space And Rats Essay, Research Paper

NASA had launched a research-purposed rocket to space back in 1995. The rocket contained rodents that were pregnant. By the time the spacecraft returned to Earth, the newborns were taken to the laboratories, where several studies were done upon the little ones. It has been found that the inner ears of those rats were developed differently than normal rats — they were more adapted to the absence of gravity. This may be a small evidence to show the adaptation abilities of organisms. In addition, if the change can be decently drastic after one generation, couple more generations can greatly change.

However, there are restrictions to the adaptation, an example of this would be the property of camouflage. Although many animals, such as chameleons, exhibit the property of camouflage to protect themselves from their predators, by blending into their environments, this color-changing capability is not an option for humans. The whole reasoning behind this fact is because humans only have one type of melanocytes while chameleon have many different kinds of pigments that are directly connected to the nervous system and triggered by the organisms? subconscious thinking.

Another study reveals that there is a possibility of small-scale change in a shorter period of time. The following procedures were carried out, two groups of guppies were placed in two different tanks. One tank has a lot of predators and the other tank has no predators ? instead, a flourishing environment was presented. Scientists have observed that species from the first tank had a greater litter with maturity rates being much higher while the other species had smaller litter with bigger and healthier guppies.