MRI those eggs

[Phillip Bigelow <n8010095@henson.cc.wwu.edu>]

Neil Clark wrote:
>As for MR.....I have thought of saturating the egg with water.  This 
>woul provide an image of the porosity and hence perhaps.....the 
>embryonic remains???  Maybe someone has the facility to do this?  
>Please get on to some one with one of the red sediment enclosed 
>bun-shaped eggs and try it out.

  I'm just letting my mind wander, here, but perhaps acetone or ethyl
alcohol would produce better penetration into the matrix than would water?
Doesn't water have a nasty habit of swelling smectitic clays that
may be present, possibly cracking or disintegrating the egg?  In dry rock, I
have seen nothing that penetrates better than does acetone.  Besides, you
get more hydrogens per molecule with acetone.  Wouldn't that give a stronger
MRI signal?
  And, provided that the ethyl alcohol isn't denatured, if the experiment
doesn't work out, I'm sure you can figure out some other use for it.  :)
  <besides, isn't alcohol usually budgeted-in to grant proposals, anyway?>
          :)