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- For a fiction story. If a frozen ovum were taken out of its cold storage and left at room temp for a few days, would it die? If so, would we be able to tell whether it was dead just by looking at it through a microscope. Presume the ovum is still in whatever tube (possibly sealed) it was held in the liquid nitrogen bath in.
A friend is writing a story in which somebody steals a frozen, non-fertilised ovum from an egg bank, meaning to do something with it (not sure what). The thief then forgets about it and finds the tube containing the ovum in her pocket a few days later. She looks at it under a microscope. The intended plot requires that she realize upon looking through the microscope that the ovum has died.
I was hoping somebody could tell me if an ovum would die if kept at room temperature in its test tube for a few days. And if so, could one tell that had happened by looking at it through a microscope? I imagine it may depend on the sort of container the ovum is held in and whether it is sealed. I am imagining a small sealed phial containing the ovum, immersed in a bath of liquid hydrogen in a rack along with many other phials. ANy info to correct or add detail to that imagination would be gratefully received!
I am physics guy, rather than biology, but I promised I'd do what I could to help find with the scientific verisimilitude of the story.
thank you
I was hoping somebody could tell me if an ovum would die if kept at room temperature in its test tube for a few days. And if so, could one tell that had happened by looking at it through a microscope? I imagine it may depend on the sort of container the ovum is held in and whether it is sealed. I am imagining a small sealed phial containing the ovum, immersed in a bath of liquid hydrogen in a rack along with many other phials. ANy info to correct or add detail to that imagination would be gratefully received!
I am physics guy, rather than biology, but I promised I'd do what I could to help find with the scientific verisimilitude of the story.
thank you