As in “Hey that scientist over there is growing sharks in an artificial uterus!”

“Why would someone grow sharks in an artificial uterus?” you may ask.

Well, you inquisitive soul, the Grey Nurse shark is endangered. And they only have two shark babies (called pups) at a time.

But, at the beginning, there is more than one shark baby in each of the mama shark’s twin uteruses (uteri?).

You see, little baby Grey Nurse sharks have this bad habit of eating their brothers and sisters while in the womb. Bad sharks. (You might even call them naughty nurses, if you were so inclined.)

So the scientists want to create artificial shark wombs to raise one shark baby each, where their brothers and sisters can’t eat them.

It already worked with a wobbegong shark, which have less cannibalistic babies. So the guy in charge (Nick Otway, a fisheries biologist at Port Stephens Fisheries Institute in Austrailia) is hopeful that he’ll be able to use it with those naughty grey nurses.

But don’t worry- he says he has no interest in producing artificial human uteri. I mean, for now.

Source: Nerdular Nerdance, which apparently had a particularily interesting set of articles this month.