Objective This study was conducted to investigate the efficacy of laser-assisted hatching (LAH) and various vitrification times for embryonic development and blastocyst cell numbers. Methods First, 2-cell and 8-cell embryos were collected by flushing out the oviducts. In the control groups, they were vitrified for 8 or 10 minutes without LAH. The LAH groups underwent quarter laser zona thinni...

Simultaneously dependent siblings often compete for parentally provided resources. This competition may lead to mortality, the probability of which may be a function, in part, of the individual offspring's production order. In birds, serial ovulation followed by hatching asynchrony of simultaneous dependents leads to differences in post-hatching survival that largely depend on ovulation (laying...

Increased risk of monozygotic twinning (MZT) has been shown to be associated with assisted reproduction techniques, particularly blastocyst culture. Interestingly, inner cell mass (ICM) splitting in human '8'-shaped hatching blastocysts that resulted in MZT was reported. However, the underlying cause of MZT is not known. In this study, we investigated in a mouse model whether in vitro culture l...

The physiological role of the embryonic external gills in anurans is equivocal. In some species, diffusion alone is clearly sufficient to supply oxygen throughout the embryonic period. In others, morphological elaboration and environmental regulation of the external gills suggest functional importance. Since oxygen stress is a common trigger of hatching, I examined the relationships among hatch...

The age structures of populations of African annual Nothobranchius spp. were examined for the first time. Daily increments in sagittal otoliths of Nothobranchius furzeri, Nothobranchius kadleci, Nothobranchius orthonotus and Nothobranchius rachovii from southern and central Mozambique were used for age determination. Four hypotheses were tested: (1) timing of hatching is consistent with the cal...

Meloidogyne incognita egg masses were immersed in different concentrations of six volaule fatty acids to bioassay their toxic effect on embryonic development and hatching. Exposure to a 250 ppm aqueous solution of volatile fatty, acids completely suppressed egg hatching within 48 hours. When exposed to a 125 ppm concentration hatching was reduced 75 % by acetic acid, 91% by propionic acid, 23% ...

The optimum dose of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation to produce gynogenetic Caspian salmon, Salmo trutta caspius, with emphasis on the "Hertwig effect" and photoreactivation (PR) were investigated. The sperm of Caspian salmon was irradiated with UV at 2010 ? 200 ?w.cm-2 in different times including 0, 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 15, 20, 25, 35 and 45 min and was allowed to fertilize normal ova; the fertilizati...

In this paper, we introduce a new method for hatching patient-specific, anatomic 3D surface models, in particular hatching of muscle surfaces. However, the method is transferable to other structures, e. g., vessels. Since 3D surface models are extracted from binary segmentation masks, the curvature orientation is rough and noisy and the final hatching direction is falsified. The goal of this wo...