Of Oocytes and Embryos
Posted on Mar 19 2010 by maggie under atrocities, critters, school, science | Permalink | | Leave A Comment | 2 Comments
An entertaining day at the lab, and I even remembered to bring my camera. Lucky you!
The scene: a pile of blue nitrile gloves, a compound microscope, a dissecting microscope, various containers and tools. Silence at first, but soon the horrorshow begins.
…a heap of bloated corpses, red eyes bulging, the tattered remains of females with abdomens torn asunder, tiny white ovaries littered about…
Take a closer look.
Hours later, the rent ovaries hacked apart and stained, the prize: one gorgeous, perfectly-formed late-stage oocyte.
Finally, a glimpse of what might have been - two live (but not for long) embryos. The first, barely 2 hours old, is beginning the process of forming germ cells, the basis of the next generation. The second is perhaps a sibling, older and more developed, with little baby Drosophila guts already forming.
Too bad about that whole drowning thing. Sorry, fruit flies.
