Step aside, cockroaches: There’s a new indestructible biological entity in town, and it’s blasting off into space to colonize Mars. Maybe not tomorrow, but if you freeze some now, it might keep for a couple centuries, give or take.
It would seem that we underestimated the resilience of sperm. Per research published in the journal Science Advances, the study—carried out on the International Space Station—looked at the effects of radiation on a batch of frozen mouse sperm that had been freeze-dried and stored there for six years (to be clear, no astronauts jerked off in space to further science…yet). Thought to be destroyed by radiation, new analysis revealed that the mouse spunk was healthy, boasted a life expectancy of up to 200 years and was capable of producing “many genetically normal offspring.”
