moonsofavalon:

loracarol:

underthehedge:

waves314:

error-404-fuck-not-found:

dendritic-trees:

fuckingflying:

I hate linguistic anthropology. Why? One of the most influential experiments in linguistic anthropology involved teaching a chimp asl. One of the most influential linguistics is named Noam Chomsky. You know what the chimp’s name was?

Nim Chimpsky.

Fucking monkey pun.

And this is in textbooks, in documentaries, everywhere. And everyone just IGNORES THIS GOD AWFUL PUN cause of how important the experiment was. But

BUT LOOK AT THIS SHIT. FUCKING NIM CHIMPSKY. I HATE THIS WHOLE FIELD.

Its not just the linguistic anthropologists.

There’s a group of very important genes that determine if your body develops in the right shape/organization… they are called the hedgehog genes, because fruit fly geneticists are all ridiculous.  The different hedgehog genes are all named after different hedgehogs.  And then someone decided to get clever and name one “sonic hedgehog” because this is just what fruitfly geneticists do.

Well sonic hedgehog controls brain development, and now actual doctors are stuck in the position of explaining to grieving parents that their child’s lethal birth defects or life-threatening tumors are caused by a “sonic hedgehog mutation”.

And this is why no one will invite the fruit fly people to parties.

Biogeochemical scientists, upon discovering the complex mechanisms that govern the storage and use of molecular iron on our planet, decided to call this cycle “the ferrous wheel”.  We groaned about that for at least five solid minutes.

You should see some (most) of the acronyms astronomers come up with.  These acronyms appear in refereed journal articles, press releases, presentations…

One of the best examples is dark matter.  The competing theories:  MACHOs and WIMPs.  Article titles include “WIMPs Wimp Out in the Search for Dark Matter” and something along the lines of “WIMPS Flexes its BICEPs” (I unfortunately cannot find the original article right now)

I know there are astronomers who are thinking about possible press releases when coming up with an acronym for their simulation/telescope/instrument/survey

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~gpetitpas/Links/Astroacro.html

Here’s a sample of some creative ones (including how did you get away with this and what were you thinking submissions)

2D-FRUTTI
ARMPIT
ASS (not listed in the above link)
BEER
BOOMERanG
COME ON+
GADZOOKS! (yes, the exclamation point is meant to be included)
GANDALF
HIS/HERS
HO-BAGS (really!?)
Hot DOGs (not listed in the above link)
LUCIFER
MARTINI
MERLIN
MIRLIN
PINTofALE
POOPSY
SAURON
SCARFACE
TANGOinPARIS
T-RECS
WISARD
WISEASS
WOMBAT
YORIC
and so, so much more

People have this idea that scientists are these sombre, sensible people, but honestly basically no one in science can be trusted to act with even a modicum of dignity.

I had a lecture this morning about using transgenic plants to create therapeutic antibodies on a large scale for medical purposes, with greater output and less risk than using mammalian cell-lines: Plantibodies. This is pretty much the standard term for them now.

Last term I learnt about a gene called TMM that causes multiple stomata to form together, stands for “Too Many Mouths”. Not “Too Many Stomata”, not “Bunched” or “Clustered” Stomata nope, “Too Many Mouths”.

Chloroplasts and mitochondria have double membranes around them, and paired, transport protein complexes that allow things to pass through them. In mitochondria these were names Translocation of the Inner Membrane proteins and Translocation of the Outer Membrane proteins…the TIM/TOM complex. When, someone discovered an equivalent for chloroplasts they decided to name them TIC and TOC because it’s sensible and certainly not as some huge joke.

There’s an Arabidopsis mutant that causes excess stamens (male organs) to develop on the flowers: Superman. An antagonistic gene was discovered, and there’s no prizes for working out that it got named Kryptonite. 

This website: http://www.curioustaxonomy.net/ is dedicated primarily to stupid taxonomic names, but also covers some genes:

The gene JAK – retconned to “Janus Kinase” for publication, but originally stood for “Just Another Kinase.”
“Cleopatra – The Cleopatra mutation is lethal only if Asp is also present.

“
“tinman – the mutant has no heart.” 

And the taxonomists are even worse. There’s a genus of snail called Turbo. Balbaroo fangaroo is a fossil kangaroo with large canines (fangaroo, urgh).
“Diastolinus this and D. that Steiner, 2006 (darkling beetles) “The specific name ’this’ is from the Greek word meaning ‘shore’ or ‘beach’ in reference to the habitat of the beetle… .” D. that is named for the English pronoun, because it is found further away (inland) from D. this. [Zootaxa 1158: 24-29.]

“

A protein in the RISC complex (oh yeah, folk just love catchy acronyms) was named R2D2 for moderately sensible reasons. When another protein was found that formed a part of this complex it was immediately named C3P0 of course.

My personal favorite is PNAS. 

Just in case you ever forget that scientists are nerds, here’s a reminder:

SCIENTISTS ARE FUCKING NERDS WHO DO FUCKING NERDY SHIT 90-FUCKING-% OF THE FUCKING TIME