who or I guess what makes those needles used to inject cells with things? what kind of process is involved? finally, if someone stuck one of those needles in there hand or whatever would it hurt? I mean whouldn’t it only damage a few cells and not set off a whole lot of pain responses in the nerves?
They are made from glass tubing, which is heated and drawn until it is extremely fine. I’ve had glass fibers lodged in my skin. They itch like crazy, and sometimes hurt if you catch the protruding end just right.
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- The Discovery channel used to run a station ID commercial showing one of these machines (making two glass needles) working a long time ago, a few years back. The commercial had no explanation, it just showed a piece of glass tubing about four inches long with both ends in some kind of clamp and a red-hot metal coil around the middle (but not touching the glass). After about 30 seconds of near-silence and apparently doing nothing, both ends of the tube/clamp snap apart, and the ends that were inside the red-hot coil are pointed.
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- The Discovery channel used to run a station ID commercial showing one of these machines (making two glass needles) working a long time ago, a few years back. The commercial had no explanation, it just showed a piece of glass tubing about four inches long with both ends in some kind of clamp and a red-hot metal coil around the middle (but not touching the glass). After about 30 seconds of near-silence and apparently doing nothing, both ends of the tube/clamp snap apart, and the ends that were inside the red-hot coil are pointed.
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Those are the machines that make the needles, you’re right. Needles stay like that, and some of them are blunted to be the “holders” for the egg.
After that part of the process, the finished needles + tube are bent at a 90 degree angle (we did it by hand) so that you can stick them in the clamps for the machine that does actual egg-poking (it’s like a giant etch-a-sketch).