Posted: May 30, 2016 1:32 pm
Even the report published on Northwester's web site is misleading, the first paragraph:
Many paragraphs later, they do say this:
This one isn't the fault of the journalists, this is the scientists not making it clear. What the fuck do you think people are going to take away from something called a 'spark' and demonstrated with flashes of light? Real journalists would report that these were not actually a real fertilization of human eggs, and the stupidity of why: "(The eggs in the study were not fertilized with actual sperm because that is not permitted in human research under federal law.)"
CHICAGO --- A stunning explosion of zinc fireworks occurs when a human egg is activated by a sperm enzyme, and the size of these “sparks” is a direct measure of the quality of the egg and its ability to develop into an embryo, according to new research from Northwestern Medicine.
Many paragraphs later, they do say this:
As the zinc is released from the egg, it binds to small molecule probes, which emit light in fluorescence microscopy experiments. Thus the rapid zinc release can be followed as a flash of light that appears as a spark.
This one isn't the fault of the journalists, this is the scientists not making it clear. What the fuck do you think people are going to take away from something called a 'spark' and demonstrated with flashes of light? Real journalists would report that these were not actually a real fertilization of human eggs, and the stupidity of why: "(The eggs in the study were not fertilized with actual sperm because that is not permitted in human research under federal law.)"