From in vitro fertilization to designer babies, the world of reproductive science has seen advances over the years that have profoundly changed the way humans conceive and give birth.
Unfortunately, artificial human wombs are not yet among those breakthroughs that have made the jump from concept to real life. But that hasn't stopped a number of news sites from running with a bonkers story about plans to build a humanoid "pregnancy robot" that carries real human fetuses to term in a synthetic womb installed into its hardware.
In recent weeks, outlets including Newsweek, The Telegraph and the New York Post have published stories about these purportedly forthcoming pregnancy bots. Said to be the brainchild of a Chinese business owner named Zhang Qifeng, the alleged founder of a company called Kaiwa Technology, these gestational robots could supposedly be in prototype by next year — that is, if the story was true, and the man behind this shocking invention verifiably existed.
As Snopes reports, this fancy bit of flagrant misinformation seems to have started circulating in earnest around August 11, when the