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January 17, 2007

Explainer explain thyself

Slate's Explainer this week answers the question, How long can you keep an embryo frozen? I have no problem with the article itself, but there's something not right about the teaser photo used in the table of contents and elsewhere on the site. Below are two images. The first is the one Slate uses. The second is a picture of an embryo at the stage when embryos are commonly frozen. See if you can spot the differences.

070115_EXP_Embryo.jpg ... 300px-Embryo,_8_cells.jpg

Further bad news for future Google image searchers: The image tag Slate uses is "embryo.jpg." It is, of course, a fetus. You could freeze one, but it wouldn't be much use to you once it thawed.

Posted by Daniel Radosh

Comments

so if an embryo can be frozen, is it alive? how many cells are the max that it can have divided into before it will die upon being frozen?

Sure an embryo is alive. The sperm and egg are alive before they join. Hell, skin cells are alive when they go down your shower drain. Or are you asking if any of this constitutes "life," a different question altogether.

Embryos are usually frozen (technically cryopreserved) at 2-3 days when they have 2,4 or 8 cells (for some reason, even numbers have better survival rates). The picture I chose is at the upper edge of that range. I'm nothing if not fair. It has recently become possible to cryopreserve embryos up to the blastocyst stage (200 cells; 5-7 days), but it's much more difficult, for reasons I don't pretend to understand.

Also, technically, I believe the death occurs upon thawing, not freezing.

Who need Slate, anyway?

I am very happy to see that your concern for the accurate representation of children in the media descends to the blastocyst phase.

Carry on.

Well, at least they didn't use something like this .

It is, of course, a fetus. You could freeze one, but it wouldn't be much use to you once it thawed.

That depends on how gastronomically adventurous you are.

That depends on how gastronomically adventurous you are.

I saw an episode of Fear Factor where each contestant had to eat up to 5 fetal pigs in under 5 minutes. As I watched, I realized that the total weight they were trying to consume was easily 5 pounds. Few people can eat that much of anything so quickly. None of the contestants managed to get down much more than half a pig, but they all tried and gagged a lot.

Anyhow, I look forward to the episode of Fear Factor where they have to eat fetal humans.

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