In Brief:

(CNN) -- The annual Ursid meteors tend to deliver only a sparse sprinkling of shooting stars on December 22. But this year's celestial shower could be remarkably impressive.

Normally, the annual meteor storm produces only a several shooting stars per hour, hardly an incentive for skywatchers to brave the frigid cold.

But meteor rates could soar to more than 100 per hour early Friday morning because the Earth is heading directly into a dusty debris trail from the comet Tuttle, NASA scientists said this week.

The parent of the Ursids, the comet is making a rare cameo appearance in the Earth's neighborhood. The ice ball follows an elliptical orbit that every 13.5 years brings it to just inside Earth's orbit, its closet approach to the sun.

NASA scientists tentatively predicted that the showers will peak around 2:30 a.m. EST. Ursid meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, although their tails will point back toward the shower's celestial origin near the bowl of the Little Dipper.

(CNN) -- Claudie Andre-Deshays will become the first astronaut from France to board the International Space Station, the French Minister of Research announced this week.

The 43-year-old woman will begin training next week in Russia for the October 2001 flight. She will conduct experiments in physics and life sciences during her 10-day mission.

Already a veteran of space travel, Andre-Deshays spent two weeks aboard the Russian space station Mir in 1996. For her mission to the ISS, she will launch from Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz spacecraft with two Russian cosmonauts.

A U.S. astronaut, Susan Helms, is expected to become the first woman aboard the station after its first residents arrived in November. Helms should fly aboard a space shuttle in March.

French astronauts have flown into space 13 times in the past, seven with Russian missions and six with U.S. ones, according to the research ministry.

(CNN) -- Scientists have demonstrated that in vitro fertilization and the early stages of embryonic growth can take place in microgravity conditions like those in outer space.

Japanese researchers successfully fertilized and incubated reproductive mouse cells in a device that simulates the absence of gravity in space.

The fertilization rates were similar to other eggs cultivated in normal gravity conditions, according to a new report published in the journal Fertility and Sterility last week. The embryos were placed into females for gestation. The birth rates and development rates were similar for both groups.

Further research and experiments in the field could someday help space colonists establish life beyond our planet, said Mike Soules, president of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, which publishes the reproductive journal.

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