Comments on: human egg makes accidental debut on camera

human egg makes accidental debut on camera

streetdreams — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:48:21 -0800

A woman ovulates during surgery for a partial hysterectomy, and it's caught on film.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:54:03 -0800

Were her curtains open?

By: mudpuppie

mudpuppie — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:56:21 -0800

Should have closed the OH DAMN.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:56:28 -0800

Wow! Amazing photos, streetd!

By: Justinian

Justinian — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:59:08 -0800

Great photos. I'm never eating roe again.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:00:28 -0800

Why, hello there alien podthing. Please don't eat me and impregnate my chest cavity with your chestbursting larvae. My bloodstream is likely toxic to you, anyway. Hey, science? Will you stop doing this kind of shit? You're totally going to make me gay. This is why it's called "THE MYSTERY OF LIFE" because not only was it once a mystery, it was probably supposed to stay that way! ZOMFG MALTHUSIAN PANIC

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:01:56 -0800

This is wonderful. I wanted to post it, but I was kind of holding out to see if moving images were actually going to be released to the Internet. Just beautiful.

By: gagglezoomer

gagglezoomer — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:01:56 -0800

These might be some of the funniest comments I've read in a while

By: Anything

Anything — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:02:26 -0800

Can't an egg leave home without being harassed by those damn paparazzis? They're everywhere these days.

By: peachfuzz

peachfuzz — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:02:52 -0800

It's hard to get a sense of scale next to those clamps (which keep moving around! Gah!), but in these photos it looks huge and juicy, like salmon roe. Very weird and very cool.

By: spilon

spilon — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:02:54 -0800

I don't know how you girls walk around with those things.

By: lysistrata

lysistrata — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:03:09 -0800

Woah, that is cool! I've learned a lot about my parts this month on Mefi. First my cervix and now my ovary.

By: lysistrata

lysistrata — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:04:56 -0800

I don't know how you girls walk around with those things. I tuck mine into my panty pockets.

By: optovox

optovox — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:06:28 -0800

These are the clearest pictures ever taken of what is the starting point of every human life: ovulation occurring inside a woman's body. Ah, so by this logic, if ovulation is the starting point of every human life, then that must mean menstruation is murder!

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:06:54 -0800

The most horrible part is that this is now somebody's fetish.

By: mullingitover

mullingitover — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:07:40 -0800

Metafilter: menstruation is murder!

By: loquacious

loquacious — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:10:57 -0800

Metafilter: menstruation is murder! Not always. It depends on the girl, what you say, what you don't say, and how good you are at footrubs after you say what you weren't supposed to say.

By: Liquidwolf

Liquidwolf — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:12:06 -0800

And nowhere on that egg does it say "Property of the Catholic Church. Here's the proof. So there! Fuck off church!

By: optovox

optovox — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:12:56 -0800

This is the second time this month someone's made an FPP about a camera inside a vagina. MetaFilter: We have cameras. Inside vaginas.

By: nevercalm

nevercalm — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:14:49 -0800

Down with menstruation! Menstruation loving libtards suck!!

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:16:03 -0800

The most horrible part is that this is now somebody's fetish. Now?

By: jedicus

jedicus — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:17:00 -0800

Reading the Wikipedia article on ovulation may be helpful.

By: Stonestock Relentless

Stonestock Relentless — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:17:10 -0800

INSANE. But, not really, it's not like had any pre-conceived notions. *rim shot* In all seriousness though, never going to eat salmon roe again, god.

By: nebulawindphone

nebulawindphone — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:19:25 -0800

Whoa. Pretty. And not at all what I would have imagined — the egg winding up on the outside of the ovary, and just sort of floating around in her abdomen for a while before settling into the fallopian tube. I'd always pictured that shit as being, like, watertight plumbing of some sort. Hmm. Is "You've got pretty ova" a weird thing to think about a stranger? It would be awesome if they put the video out.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:20:32 -0800

BLOOP!

By: BobFrapples

BobFrapples — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:23:28 -0800

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:26:13 -0800

Who's up for some ikura?

By: sxtxixtxcxh

sxtxixtxcxh — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:27:34 -0800

wow, that looks painful.

By: uandt

uandt — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:27:52 -0800

But will these eggs go best with truffles or just some lemon juice? This is great but I'm not satisfied until someone has done a tasting.

By: garlic

garlic — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:32:06 -0800

So on the NSFW tagging front, cervixes photo'd at home aren't safe, but ovaries photo'd during surgery are? blog photos vs newscientist photos? Stupid subjective standards!

By: ben242

ben242 — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:33:01 -0800

Metafilter: making your parts feel weird and exposed.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:35:10 -0800

I'd think everybody would just assume it was probably NSFW after reading the words "A woman".

By: zennie

zennie — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:35:26 -0800

Cool. Thanks for posting! I have to say that's much prettier than I imagined. The doctor said that the event was a 15-minute process. I wonder how typical that is? : It's hard to get a sense of scale next to those clamps... A normal human ovary is roughly the size of an almond. The spherical gold blob contains the egg surrounded by a mass of cells called the corona radiata (iirc).

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:36:38 -0800

OMG I KNOW THAT GIRL!

By: hojoki

hojoki — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:36:56 -0800

I can't believe I was so cute.

By: limeonaire

limeonaire — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:37:07 -0800

OK, this is cool. This plus the cervix thing have kind of given me a new understanding of how my body [presumably] actually works.

By: stavrogin

stavrogin — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:41:21 -0800

If you look closely at the picture, you can see a patiently waiting toast point at the bottom right. mmm, oviar.

By: The ____ of Justice

The ____ of Justice — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:41:49 -0800

I clickeyed the link, and clickeyed away just as fast. *cries*

By: evilangela

evilangela — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:51:21 -0800

Wow. Truly incredible to see. Especially since my partner and I just attempted in vitro, and they had her on all sorts of hormones to hyper-stimulate her ovaries for eggs. I remember how creepy it was just seeing the results on the ultrasound. Now looking at this and thinking what it must have been like for her with so many follicles producing eggs at once... *shudder*. I completely understand why she was so uncomfortable during the process and said she was able to sense her ovaries. Looking at just how much a single follicle sticks out from the ovary, and trying to imagine a dozen at once... again, *shudder*. I owe her something special now, I realize. (and sadly, no, the in vitro didn't work out for us. :( )

By: Senator

Senator — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:51:38 -0800

Now I am even more confused about the inner workings of women than before. I was only able to identify the surgical tool.

By: amyms

amyms — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:53:04 -0800

wow, that looks painful. It's not painful, but a lot of us feel a sharp little pinch when we ovulate. It's really cool to be able to see what's actually happening. Thanks streetdreams!

By: sexyrobot

sexyrobot — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:55:37 -0800

sure...ikura is great...but it holds not the candle to sujiko and srsly...u organisms are disgusting.

By: HotToddy

HotToddy — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:58:09 -0800

wow, that looks painful. It's not painful, but a lot of us feel a sharp little pinch when we ovulate. Fuck that, it is too! Or at least it is for me. And now I know why.

By: beautifulcheese

beautifulcheese — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:59:06 -0800

Wow. That's amazing. I always wondered what it looked like inside when that was happening.

By: liquorice

liquorice — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:06:03 -0800

The surgical instrument is what is freaking me out the most, it looks like a eel!

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:09:53 -0800

Hmm! The difference between sujiko and ikura.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:22:17 -0800

My wife used to get noticeable 'mittleshmertz'. She knew which side she was ovulating on every month. It certainly made it easy to get pregnant. Although it's not a lot of pain in an absolute sense (at least for her) it's a lot of pain for such a tiny event!

By: The Bellman

The Bellman — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:23:43 -0800

Fuck that, it is too [painfull]! Or at least it is for me. And now I know why. That would be mittleschmerz. A word that, contrary to popular belief, does not mean that you can burrow through an elephant.

By: kittens for breakfast

kittens for breakfast — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:24:32 -0800

I found the cervix photos strangely hot. This just makes me think of Giger.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:36:59 -0800

Who would have guessed we all evolve from cod liver oil capsules? History in the making indeed.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:42:51 -0800

MetaFilter: We have cameras. Inside vaginas. QUICK BRING ME A CAT. MAYBE SEVERAL. AND A SCANNER.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:44:00 -0800

I find these photos kind of hot and the cervix ones yecchy, by association: pap smears hurt like hell, make me queasy, and I dread, dread, dread them, but when I ovulate I'm all sensual and confident.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:45:26 -0800

Now looking at this and thinking what it must have been like for her with so many follicles producing eggs at once... Giger has been referenced already. I'm totally thinking of that scene from Aliens when Ripley discovers the queen's nest. There's totally fog, weird fluids and laserbeams in there and some kind of pointy, exoskeletal alien thing tending it all. That's not a clamp in those pictures, it's the alien's pointy legs!

By: bwg

bwg — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:47:58 -0800

MetaFilter: somebody's fetish

By: dirtynumbangelboy

dirtynumbangelboy — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:48:42 -0800

Ugh, innards. WHY DO I ALWAYS LOOK? (Yes, obviously, this is actually very cool and good for science and all those wonderful things. But they're called innards because THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE INSIDE WHERE THEY ARE TIDILY HIDDEN AWAY)

By: sexyrobot

sexyrobot — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:54:38 -0800

sujiko is usually better when they um, dont wash all the blood off of it...when i found out it was the whole ovary (or whatever that 'membrane' is...i'm pretty sure it's the whole damn ovary...the eggs are all embedded/still forming in it), i was a little freaked...then i ordered more. and went back the next day. sujiko onigiri...*drools*

By: SPrintF

SPrintF — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:56:48 -0800

*Proud Mom shows off baby pictures.* "And here's little Bobby when he was just an unfertilized blastocyst." "Mom!"

By: artifarce

artifarce — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:01:17 -0800

A normal human ovary is roughly the size of an almond. Thanks for the context. I couldn't get over how big the egg looked. Fun Fact: I used to cut frogs open, steal their oocytes, sew the frog back up, then stab the oocytes with electrodes. It sounds creepier now after seeing these pictures.

By: sexyrobot

sexyrobot — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:08:16 -0800

also: god, was i ever that young?

By: Catfry

Catfry — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:09:32 -0800

So on the NSFW tagging front, cervixes photo'd at home aren't safe, but ovaries photo'd during surgery are? blog photos vs newscientist photos? Stupid subjective standards! The deleted post with the pictures of a cervix was specifically marked SFW despite it's description sounding NSFW. This post isn't similarly confusing.

By: dabitch

dabitch — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:16:51 -0800

And not at all what I would have imagined — the egg winding up on the outside of the ovary, and just sort of floating around in her abdomen When we were taught this way back in fifth grade I found it difficult to believe that eggs didn't get lost on the way - I pictured eggs flying about inside our bellies bouncing like rubber balls. And that would explain the previously mentioned mittleschmerz pain (Yeah, I got that I can tell which one I ovulate from every time - I've made bets with my gyn before ultrasounds and won.). sorry about the ivf, evilangela.

By: lampoil

lampoil — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:41:29 -0800

It's kind of funny how surprised I was at how much it actually resembles the laying of an egg.

By: Floydd

Floydd — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:02:57 -0800

My girlfriend ululates when she ovulates. Now I know why.

By: Countess Elena

Countess Elena — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:03:18 -0800

I just assumed this all took place on the microscopic level, and that eggs were like sperm, invisible to the naked eye. I had no idea that human eggs were macroscopic. I feel humbled. I wonder if that woman felt annoyed, somehow. ("Look, I was paying you people to take the damn thing out, not stand around with cameras! Christ, I look disgusting!")

By: zardoz

zardoz — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:15:03 -0800

Oh yeah, like I'm ever gonna click that link.

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:22:36 -0800

In all seriousness -- I'm surprised it still happened in the middle of surgery. I know some body processes shut down during surgery (digestion, I know), I'm surprised this didn't. And now for the wacky gross-out comment -- you think this is gross? Feh. I've seen color photos of MY OWN NECROTIC ovary, and they were shown to me when I was on a morphine drip -- and in the presence of my parents and my only-met-him-one-week-before boyfriend. This? Nothing. (Yes, there is a logical explanation for that scenario...)

By: NikitaNikita

NikitaNikita — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:36:22 -0800

Awesome link, thanks! But yes, some scale bars would really help because it looks SO HUGE!

By: adipocere

adipocere — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:43:13 -0800

Man, this reminds me so much of Xtro it's not even funny. You know what I'm talking about, when that woman has been glued to the wall with wads of whatever alien goo, and has been transformed into some kind of egg-laying machine, just pinching these babies out. Yup.

By: sotonohito

sotonohito — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:48:53 -0800

Very nifty, and I'll add my voice to those wanting to see the video. Countess Elena, I'd guess that the hospital had to get her permission to release the photos, medical privacy laws being what they are and all.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:55:30 -0800

I'm never eating roe again. roe's gonna be real disappointed.

By: dirtynumbangelboy

dirtynumbangelboy — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:00:37 -0800

Maybe not, sotonohito, if she's not being identified in any way. Not sure of the law on that, but I seem to recall hearing that.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:03:47 -0800

optovox writes "This is the second time this month someone's made an FPP about a camera inside a vagina.
"MetaFilter: We have cameras. Inside vaginas." Uh, you can't see ovaries from that angle. Looks to me like an abdominal surgery.

By: Optimus Chyme

Optimus Chyme — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:41:38 -0800

Fucking awesome.

By: bwg

bwg — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:53:54 -0800

roe's gonna be real disappointed. Wade can't do everything.

By: crossoverman

crossoverman — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:13:22 -0800

I've learned a lot about my parts this month on Mefi. First my cervix and now my ovary. Woah, that was your cervix? HOTT!

By: rmmcclay

rmmcclay — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:15:43 -0800

Awesome. I never knew what a human egg looked like.

By: b33j

b33j — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 05:20:43 -0800

Okay, now someone tell me, how does it get in the fallopian tube, because ALL the diagrams I've seen show the fallopian tube as being hopeful some distance away. (I'm loving this female anatomy stuff, though, fantastic, thank you OPs!)

By: zennie

zennie — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:13:19 -0800

b33j, they're mostly separate but not actually much apart. The ovary sits almost in the infundibulum (conical opening of the tube), which has fimbria (finger-like projections) over the ovary. Everything's held in place with ligaments and connective tissue and the squish of the other organs. I know it seems precarious, but there aren't really that many places for the oocyte to go. That may be why this has survived evolution to be the elementary setup for a great many species. All vertebrates, so far as I know.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:20:17 -0800

I've seen color photos of MY OWN NECROTIC ovary ... in the presence of ... my only-met-him-one-week-before boyfriend. Damn, you play hardball!

By: puddinghead

puddinghead — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:29:59 -0800

Wow, was that cool. Sometimes I know that I'm ovulating and it hurts, and now I know why.

By: ZeroAmbition

ZeroAmbition — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:25:07 -0800

Cool; pretty too (and I'm not particulary fond of looking at innards either). Also, put me down as one of the folks surprised by the size of the egg. I mean, I knew they were bigger than sperm, but I had no idea they're THAT much bigger than sperm. Explains Mittelschmerz alright.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:40:23 -0800

Isn't that an egg plus a wrapping of extra, protective "stuff" that's shed once it get into the fallopian tube?