Was She or Wasn't She Preggers? CSI: New Haven
Last week, shame hive Yale University brought us senior Aliza Shvarts, who claimed she'd been getting pregant and aborting said pregnancies as part of some kind art project. Then Yale said she never really got pregnant, though she still says she did. However, she also said that she wasn't sure if her bleeding was the result menstruation or those artistic abortions. Well if, as she claims, she does have the blood in a freezer somewhere, Discover magazine is on hand to settle these pesky questions once and for all.
"If Shvarts did indeed preserve the blood and freeze it immediately after it was collected, it could be tested for human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), the hormone produced during pregnancy. If she failed to carefully preserve it, however, the hCG could have degenerated over time, making it untraceable.
"Another option would be a DNA analysis of the blood. 'If you could take a sample of her blood and determine her genetic material, then test the [menstrual] blood against it, if there's any genetic material there that's not hers, that would indicate a pregnancy,' says Dr. Michael Ross, an obstetrician/gynecologist in Northern Virginia. 'Or you could do a test for Y chromosomes, on the 50/50 chance that [the fetus] was a boy.'
"Still, either test might not be conclusive: 'If the [blood] has more than one genetic program, you could say there's an overwhelming likelihood that she's pregnant-or just that she had sex before collecting the blood,' says Ross. Plus, once again preservation remains an issue, since DNA specimens are notoriously easy to contaminate."
Ball's in your court, Yale Monster. Give us her genetic material!