Zinc fireworks when egg meets sperm

[Chris S.]

Interesting short video and article. Excerpt:

• "Sparks literally fly when a sperm and an egg hit it off. The fertilized mammalian egg releases from its surface billions of zinc atoms in “zinc sparks,” one wave after another, a Northwestern University-led interdisciplinary research team has found.
  
  Using cutting-edge technology they developed, the team is the first to capture images of these molecular fireworks and pinpoint the origin of the zinc sparks: tiny zinc-rich packages just below the egg’s surface."

The microscopy is complex. From the abstract of the Nature Chemistry article referenced in the above, they used:

• "a chemical probe for dynamic live-cell fluorescence imaging and a combination of scanning transmission electron microscopy with energy-dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence microscopy and three-dimensional elemental tomography for high-resolution elemental mapping."

[DQE]

Thanks for posting this interesting article and imagery.

It's truly amazing how the newest imaging tools can be combined to create such visually remarkable scientific information.