Tweet

Vagina Museum

3 Apr, 10 tweets, 2 min read

Good morning, We have another horrible egg fact for you today, and since it's Easter, it also includes baby bunnies. Awww, bless.

Anyway, sorry, this is a horrible fact, and content warning for animal death.

Since at least ancient Egypt, people have wanted to know if they were pregnant or not. The Egyptians did it by peeing on barley seeds and looking at how quickly it sprouted. Then, throughout time, there were more tests, generally involving inspecting urine in some way or other.

The first accurate pregnancy test with solid scientific backing was developed in 1927. It still involved pee - specifically injecting pee into immature mice and then inspecting their ovaries a few days later.

When you're pregnant, your body produces human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). This hormone has the effect of inducing ovulation if you're not currently pregnant, and it's used in fertility treatments to do this.

hCG is found in your urine if you're pregnant, but not present in urine if you're not.

So, early pregnancy tests involved injecting the urine into mammals too young to ovulate, and then checking for signs of ovulation. Unfortunately for said small mammals, that involved looking inside them by dissection.

In 1931, hot on the heels of the mouse test, a new pregnancy test came on the market. This one was pretty much the same test, except it involved injecting pee into immature *rabbits* and seeing if it induced ovulation by killing and dissecting them a few days later.

That's where the phrase "the rabbit died" comes from as an annoucement of pregnancy - however, the rabbit always died, whether or not you were pregnant.

In 1939, a new pregnancy test came on the scene which didn't involve the deaths of any small fluffy animals. This one involved injecting pee into Xenopus frogs. After a few days, if you were pregnant, the frog would lay eggs.

It wasn't until 1960 that a reliable pregnancy test - still testing for the presence of hCG, and tests to this day test for the presence of the hormone - was developed which didn't involve injecting pee into an animal and seeing if it made eggs.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @vagina_museum

Vagina Museum

@vagina_museum

4 Apr

HAPPY EASTER! It's the perfect day for us to tell you all about JESUS'S VAGINA... or more specifically, medieval interpretations of Christ's side wound as, well... look at it.

There are numerous depictions of Jesus's wound turned on its side, and shaped distinctly like a vulva.

Some surviving representations of the wound are worn, probably because people kissed and rubbed them. At least three medieval saints had visions - sometimes ecstatic - involving kissing or drinking from the wound.

Read 9 tweets

Vagina Museum

@vagina_museum

1 Apr

Since it's nearly Easter, we're going to share some slightly cursed egg knowledge. Let's talk about kiwis (the national bird of Aotearoa/New Zealand, not the fruit) and their frighteningly ginormous eggs.

Ostriches lay the biggest eggs, but kiwi eggs are by far the biggest as a proportion of body size. Kiwi eggs are up to a quarter of their body mass - that's the equivalent of a human giving birth to a four year old.

They can lay up to 100 eggs in their lifetime. Ouch.

Read 6 tweets

Vagina Museum

@vagina_museum

12 Mar

Good afternoon, let us take you on a brief history of the practice of "sex verification" in sport.

Content warning: this thread mentions genital mutilation, anti-intersex discrimination and body shaming.

The story of sex verification in sport begins with the original Olympic games in Ancient Greece. Let us take you back to around 400BC, and a woman named Kallipateira.

The original Olympics were distinctly men-only. Women weren't even allowed to cross the river Alpheios during the Games, and the penalty was death.

Kallipateira was a widow, and her son was boxing in the Olympics. She wanted to support him, so disguised herself as his trainer.

Read 28 tweets

Vagina Museum

@vagina_museum

24 Feb

https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1364510176745836546

This is incorrect and misleading. This is not cervical screening, and is not a smear test, and is not a replacement for a smear test. It's self-sampling for HPV from a vaginal swab.

https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1364510176745836546

It's impossible to perform a smear test on yourself unless you are incredibly flexible and have absolutely perfect aim to hit your cervix. Cervical smears are a procedure which you need someone to do for you, and you need that person to know what they're doing.

The self sampling pilot isn't cervical screening. Those who receive the kits are taking a swab from their vagina to check for Human Papillomavirus (HPV), a virus which can cause cervical cancer. People whose sample contains HPV will then be asked to go for a standard smear test.

Read 10 tweets

Vagina Museum

@vagina_museum

24 Feb

good afternoon, who would like to hear about a controversy about sending nudes into outer space?

well, we're going to tell you about a controversy about sending NUDES into OUTER SPACE...

in 1972 and 1973, the two Pioneer spacecraft were sent out to explore the outer solar system. being the first human-built objects to be able to achieve escape velocity from our solar system, it was decided to include a message should any aliens intercept them.

Carl Sagan was approached to design a plaque with a message from humanity, and Linda Sagan created the artwork, and the plaques were fixed to both spaceships.

Read 15 tweets

Vagina Museum

@vagina_museum

23 Feb

@floschechter

Good afternoon, vagina fans! It is @floschechter signing on to tweet about my cervical smear today!!

thread 👇

I was intending to live tweet it but it happened so fast I literally didn't have time!!! But I managed to nab some pictures and key info to share.

When I arrived, a receptionist met me at the door to sign me in. He gave me a new mask even though I was already wearing one. Not entirely sure why....

After about 3 minutes, the nurse called me in to the consulting room.