Word: ovum
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...defective gene was only one of tens of thousands in each sex cell (sperm or ovum); it was recessive, meaning that whenever it was paired with a normal gene, its maleficent action was blocked. Even so, it spread so far and wide that it eventually appeared among Ashkenazic families that did not know they were related. Then a husband and wife, each bearing the gene, began to have dysautonomic children. On the average, one-fourth of the offspring of such marriages will have two normal genes (see diagram); two will be healthy but carry one abnormal gene, while the fourth...
...morning-after pill is not literally a contraceptive, since it does not work by preventing ovulation, or the union of sperm and ovum. Instead, it prevents implantation of the fertilized ovum (zygote) in the wall of the uterus, which normally occurs about six to seven days after conception...
...minute or two. ("Postorgasmic sleep" had previously been regarded as a male characteristic.) The measles-like rash fades, the engorged vessels of the pelvis and breasts relax to permit the resumption of normal blood flow, and the vagina subsides into a state that facilitates the movement of sperm to ovum for conception...
...only gape and exclaim, "For Christ's sake, what's this?" He was a man of rare humor, often expressed in self-deprecating terms. Responding to criticism that he was too intellectual, that he talked over the heads of the voters, he tossed out a Latinism: Via ovum cranium difficilis est (The way of the egghead is hard). He loved people and in his later years was one of New York's most inveterate partygoers; yet even when surrounded by admirers he somehow seemed lonely. He was a completely sophisticated citizen of the world...
...moment a female mammal is conceived - whether mouse, cat or woman - she has two X chromosomes, one each from father's sperm and mother's ovum. The presence of the pair of Xs, which are reproduced in all of her body's cells, is what makes her female. But each X chromosome packs many other chemically coded instructions for the body; if both a woman's Xs remained active throughout life, she would be flooded with a double quota of some blood-clotting factors, enzymes and other vital proteins. Since she is not, something must happen...