Vasectomy is one of few widely available methods of contraception for people with male reproductive systems aside from condoms, abstinence, and the withdrawal method, and it is the only one of those options that can be permanent (Amory 2016). The procedure’s prominence has led me to investigate the history of vasectomy and particularly the evolution in vasectomy technique over time. Since its introduction in the late nineteenth century, the procedure has had a variety of impacts on many people across the world. In this research project, I have sought to analyze what the technical evolution of vasectomy reveals about the changing priorities of the medical systems that use it. In particular, I point to ways the eugenics movement’s attempts to control individual reproduction have led to both vasectomy’s efficacy and its restrictiveness.

Simplifying science means more than just making science understandable for people of lower chronological age, it also encompasses making science more accessible to people with a lower educational age. Through their “Embryo Tales,” Ask a Biologist discusses topics such as fetal alcohol syndrome, ectopic pregnancies, polio, etc. and the science behind them in an easy-to-understand manner. The Ask a Biologist materials are directed at a younger audience in terms of educational age compared to most textbooks and other sources, which allows them to communicate information to people who otherwise may not comprehend the science at hand. As Ask a Biologist states, their main goal is to “increase communication between scientists and the public” (Ask a biologist). They increase the cognition of the public by using a readability level checker to keep each sentence easy to understand, implementing well thought-out analogies throughout the article, incorporating helpful pictures, and including an engaging, related story at the beginning of each article. This thesis explains studies both for and agains those techniques aiming to make science-related topics more understandable. The thesis encompasses some of my own Embryo Tales with an analysis of them, highlights my role in shaping Embryo Tales into what they are today, and also details how I will apply what I learned to my career as a future physician.

Libbie Henrietta Hyman was born into a recently immigrated Jewish family on 6 December 1888 in Des Moines, Iowa. One of many siblings and daughter to parents Sabina Neumann and Joseph Hyman, who did not particularly support her interests in science, Hyman excelled in school and indulged her interests in biology in her free time. From a young age, Hyman collected and cataloged flora around her home. Despite being valedictorian of her high school class, Hyman's first job was labeling cereal boxes in a local factory. It was only when a former teacher became aware of Hyman's situation that Hyman was prompted to apply for college scholarships.

Karl Wilhelm Theodor Richard von Hertwig is an important figure in the history of embryology for his contributions of artificial hybridization of sea urchin eggs and the formulation of his coelom theory. He was born 23 September 1850 in Friedelberg, Germany, to Elise Trapp and Carl Hertwig. Richard and his older brother Oscar began their studies at Jena under the direction of Ernst Haeckel from 1868 to 1871. In 1872 Hertwig became a lecturer in zoology at Jena while Oscar lectured in anatomy and embryology. As both brothers advanced in their respective fields, Hertwig left Jena to become a professor at Königsberg. In 1883 he was professor at Bonn and in 1885 in Munich, where he stayed until his retirement in 1925. Hertwig married Julia Braun in 1887 and had two sons and one daughter. He remained very active his entire life, outliving his brother Oscar by fifteen years.

Stanley Cohen is a biochemist who participated in the discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF) and epidermal growth factor (EGF). He shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Rita Levi-Montalcini for their work on the discovery of growth factors. His work led to the discovery of many other growth factors and their roles in development.

As the third director of the Carnegie Institute of Washington s Department of Embryology, George Washington Corner made a number of contributions to the life sciences as well as to administration. Corner was born on 12 December 1889 in Baltimore, Maryland, near the newly established Johns Hopkins University. Although Corner was not exposed to science much in school at a young age, he developed an early appreciation for science through conversations with his father about geography and by looking through the family's National Geographic magazines.

The principal work of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Summa Theologica is divided into three parts and is designed to instruct both beginners and experts in all matters of Christian Truth. It discusses topics central to Christian morality, ethics, law, and the life of Christ, providing philosophical and theological solutions to common arguments and questions surrounding the Christian faith. The views presented in this body of writing are currently upheld in large part by the modern doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Interesting references to and insights on ensoulment and embryology, as well as other topics discussed in Summa Theologica, indicate a strong Aristotelian and Augustinian influence.

Stanley Cohen published "Purification of a Nerve-Growth Promoting Protein from the Mouse Salivary Gland and its Neuro-Cytoxic Antiserum" in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences in 1960. This paper outlined the successful purification and identification of nerve growth factor (NGF) as a protein, the developmental effects of depriving an embryo of NGF, and the discovery that NGF is also required for the maintenance of the nervous system.

Pope Innocent XI, born Benedetto Odescalchi, made considerable contributions to the Roman Catholic approach to embryology by condemning several propositions on liberal moral theology in 1679, including two related to abortion and ensoulment. His rejection of these principles strengthened the Church's stance against abortion and for the idea of "hominization," meaning the presence of human qualities before birth.

The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, began in 1888 to offer opportunities for instruction and research in biological topics. For the first few years, this meant that individual investigators had a small lab space upstairs in the one wooden building on campus where students heard their lectures and did their research in a common area downstairs. The lectures for those first years offered an overview of general biology with a focus on zoology, and they were intended for teachers and graduate students interested in acquiring the background for teaching about and/or actually doing laboratory work. As the lab quickly grew, it added sets of lectures that made up courses in zoology, then botany, then physiology, and in 1893 what became the first Embryology Course.