Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Finding The Good Eggs

Human life begins in bright flash of light as a sperm meets an egg, scientists have shown for the first time, after capturing the astonishing ‘fireworks’ on film.
I had to read through the whole linked article to confirm conform what I suspected expected: this is just another example of fluorescence spectroscopy.  This means that the phenomenon is more akin to putting tiny mirrors in place on the egg which reflect shined light when zinc impinges them.  The lights and mirrors are introduced artificially. The technique is yet another example of work pioneered by Roger Tsien.

7 comments:

Dust Bunny Queen said...

And God said, "Let there be light"

Just throwing that out for the inevitable discussion about abortion and when does life begin.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Feed chickens lots of colorful veggies and bugs and you get the good eggs!

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

My thought reading Chick was smoke and mirrors...

I speculate the effect is particularly pronounced with cannabis users ;)

I could be wrong.

ricpic said...

Well, I assume the Big Bang was accompanied by a big flash of light so it follows that the lit....do I have to spell it out?!

Jim in St Louis said...

Fascinating article, but I understand (imperfectly) chicklit’s point that the light is not sourced from the egg, but reflected off of it.

I am unsure what to think about fertility treatments. There does not seem to be a consistent ethical respect for life. The commercialization of eggs and embryos is offensive, and the implantation of multiple lives knowing that some will be aborted later is flat out wrong. I recognize this is a new field of science, and the first wave of any new therapy probably kills more patients than it saves, but those deaths would not be a reason to stop research if the ultimate goal is to promote life. It has also made a lot of happy parents, especially women who could not have been fulfilled in quite the same way.
Again I end up in the “optimistic but don’t know” category.

EBL- As kids we could tell when spring was here cause the yolks turned from pale yellow (corn mash and table scraps) to bright orange (grass and insects and whatever else they could find)

The Dude said...

Hey, they said there would be fireworks!

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

DBQ - :-)