[tt] NS: Human egg makes accidental debut on camera
Premise Checker
<checker at panix.com> on
Fri Jun 20 01:12:28 UTC 2008
Note how the article flatly asserts that this is where life begins. Where
are the pro-abortionists? This is typical. Estimates of the standard of
living routinely subtract taxes, as though there are no benefits from
government activity.
Human egg makes accidental debut on camera
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19826604.200&print=true
11 June 2008
Linda Geddes
[Best to see the dead-tree version, but try to click the URL.]
Look closely: this is history in the making. These are the clearest
pictures ever taken of what is the starting point of every human
life: ovulation occurring inside a woman's body. See the photos
"The release of the oocyte from the ovary is a crucial event in
human reproduction," says Jacques Donnez at the Catholic University
of Louvain (UCL) in Brussels, Belgium. "These pictures are clearly
important to better understand the mechanism."
Observing ovulation in humans is extremely rare, and previous images
have been fuzzy. Donnez captured the event by accident while
preparing to carry out a partial hysterectomy on a 45-year-old
woman. The release of an egg was considered a sudden, explosive
event, but his pictures, to be published in Fertility and Sterility,
show it taking place over a period of at least 15 minutes.
Shortly before the egg is released, enzymes break down the tissue in
the mature follicle, a fluid-filled sac on the surface of the ovary
that contains the egg. This prompts the formation of a reddish
protrusion, and after a while a hole appears, from which the egg
emerges, surrounded by support cells. It then enters a Fallopian
tube, which carries it to the uterus.
While there are no immediate medical implications from the pictures,
Darryl Russell, who researches reproductive health at the University
of Adelaide in Australia, says they are remarkable: "In animals,
even when we control hormone levels - allowing us to predict the
time at which ovulation will occur - it is very rare to see it in
progress."
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