Human Ovulation picture

This is from our local paper, the Projo. Very cool. My one question is, if the woman is ovulating so healthily and nicely, why's she getting a hysterectomy??

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Human ovulation photographed in living color

Jacques Donnez

Ovulation moment caught on camera by a bystander, really. BBC:

A human egg has been filmed in close-up emerging from the ovary for the first time, captured by chance during a routine operation....

Gynaecologist Dr Jacques Donnez spotted it in progress during a hysterectomy.

...He said that some theories had suggested an "explosive" release for the egg, but the ovulation he witnessed took 15 minutes to complete.

I know I've felt a twinge -- a brief sharp pain -- and suspected I was ovulating, which may have given rise to the idea of an "explosive" release.

These photos are more than fascinating. I wish they were larger -- you can't really see the egg inside its coating of translucent support cells. The idea that my body does this "without me" was strong in pregnancy, and here's the beginning of that process.

The woman whose ovulation was photographed was not named.

Dr. Donnez's pictures are to be published in Fertility and Sterility -- fertstert.org --- according to New Scientist, which first reported their existence.