A total of 740 cycles of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) were performed: 625 cycles when < 6 x 10(5) total motile spermatozoa were harvestable from the ejaculate and 115 cycles in cases with a history of previous fertilization failure after classic in-vitro fertilization or subzonal sperm injection. An average of two pronuclei were observed in 63% of the injected oocytes, allowing 725 t...

A double pipette system for local, controlled drug infusion is presented. Two concentric pipettes can be manipulated separately and pressurized independently by a designated double holder. The inner pipette is loaded with the desirable solution (drug), and functions as a source, while the outer one is a sink. This gives a flow of the solution between the two pipettes that protrudes only a small...

the open pulled straw has been used effectively to vitrify preimplantation embryos because of geometricfeatures that allow rapid rates of temperature exchange. one possible inexpensive alternative to the openpulled straw are commercially-available microcapillary pipette tips commonly used for electrophoresis. themain purpose of this study was to compare the survival rates of in vitro produced b...

We report that a droplet dispensed from a micropipette almost always has a considerable electrical charge of a magnitude dependent on the constituents of the droplet, on atmospheric humidity and on the coating material of pipette tip. We show that this natural electrification of a droplet originates from the charge separation between a droplet and pipette tip surface by contact with water due t...

INTRODUCTION Thumb-push manual pipettes are commonly used tools in many medical, biological, and chemical laboratories. Epidemiological studies [1] indicate that the use of pipettes is strongly associated with musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in the hand and shoulder. Almost 90% of pipette users, who continuously used the pipettes for more than an hour on a daily basis, reported hand and/or elb...

Submicrometer-size thermocouples at the tip of gold-coated glass micropipettes containing a platinum core were produced and tested. The response time of such thermocouples measured with different techniques appeared to be not bigger than a few microseconds. The calculations indicate that the spatial selectivity of this new class of thermocouple devices can be less than 2 pm along the pipette an...

The many practical difficulties of imaging small (~500nm) dendritic spine heads are discussed. A possible candidate for achieving this is presented, SICM. The drawbacks with the current operation of SICM are analysed, and suggestions for possible techniques to improve the process are looked at. In particular, mathematical models of the approach curve are analysed to give an estimate of the maxi...