Link: The incredible inedible egg...

I know sometimes it must seem as if my mission in life is to gross my dear Internet elves out as much as possible, and I'm sorry.  (Ummm... Not really).

I can't help it.  It just seems that the grossness of humanity and my National Geographic interest with that grossness collide and then the resultant fascination finds its outlet here.

So I won't steal the pictures to post here, and instead just point you there: Jezebel's link to the story -- and PICTURES! -- of the ovulation caught on film.  Like, AH!  So that's what it looks like!!! 

I find it funny that the stories find it important to emphasize that this was caught on film by accident while performing a partial hysterectomy.  So now I have this vision of a surgeon somewhere in Brussels with her mask on and her patient all sliced up with guts outside the body and nurses are swabbing her forehead so droplets of sweat don't run into her surgical microscope thingy on her glasses when -- "Oh...C'est quoi?  ...Mon Dieu! Obtiens l'appareil-photo! L'appareil-photo! ...VITE!"

Forget the hysterectomy and cue hysteria.

And may I say, I always thought my eggs were smaller than that.  Like, super-microscope one-celled-amoeba necessary, but nooooo. Looks like we can now use the term "egg-envy" without further ado.

Also apparently a big deal: the fact that ovulation takes approximately fifteen minutes.  Which kinda makes sense.  Really, it does.  Think about it.  Draw a little graph if you have to.  Or just do a little personal experiment with a stopwatch: Compare the average length of time the ovulation process requires compared to the female orgasm, and then plug in the uh... the uh... ummm... "male equivalents."

Comments

[marisa]

well, they must have been wearing those super-high-power magnification goggles...

wikipedia tells me that the human egg is 100 to 200 micrometers in diameter.

200 micrometers is 0.02 milimeters, or 0.007874 inches. (thanks, Internets)

but yeah, human eggs look a lot like caviar. perhaps less gamey tasting, though.

[marisa]

ooh wait, there's more.

the bbc article has more info, and it will tickle your anglophilic tendencies. full stop.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7447942.stm

when the egg exits the follicle, it is "surrounded by a jelly-like substance containing cells. [so, that big yellow thing is its cushiony clothing, not just the egg]

The egg itself is only the size of a full-stop, and the whole ovary, which contains many immature eggs, just a couple of inches long."

[QueenAlpo]

OMG Marisa... I do NOT tell you this enough, but I always LOVE your comments. So informative, and yet they always make me gasp involuntarily.

And who knew our ovaries were that big?! GO Girl!!! Look at 'em OVARIES!

[marisa]

*blush*

your blog inspires me to post, so thanks. :)