• Distant_Foreground@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    So sensitive in fact that a really common type of pregnancy test basically involved exposing a particular type of frog to human female urine. The frog being so sensitive to the presence of certain hormones would begin to ovulate if the urine sample was from a pregnant woman.

    Really interesting but a bit of a shit lot in life for the frog!

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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      4 months ago

      To be fair that’s an improvement over the previous test since you could reuse the frogs while you had to kill the rabbit. Even older ones involved peeing on grain. We’ve known that there was something different about the urine of women when they are pregnant for a shockingly long time, but couldn’t explain exactly what in any real detail until fairly recently.

      • Distant_Foreground@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        I didn’t know about the grain or rabbit tests. At least the rabbits got off the hook when the frogs presented themselves as a better option, I suppose.