arrghigiveup:

cyada:

callmegallifreya:

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.

The phenomenon of sneezing when exposed to sudden bright light is called an Autosomal-dominant Compelling Helio Opthalmic Outburst. ACHOO.

Half a byte of data is a nibble.

There was this guy called Edwin Southern who invented a new method of DNA sequence detection, so they called it the Southern Blot after him.

Then they named the three next methods Northern, Western and Eastern Blots. People laughed at it and all was fun and games.

But as always in science there are still new methods being discovered and now there are Southwestern and Northwestern and Far-Eastern and Far-Western Blots and everyone’s wondering when it’s going to stop.

This post keeps crossing my dash again and again, each time with more and more hilarity added on, so I decided to post it to facebook and tag a couple of researcher friends. This is the response I got within the space of 15 minutes:

“There’s a protein out there by the name of Pikachurin, named so because it acts fast, lightning fast”

“hERG is short for human ether-a-go-go gene, and was named so because when flies with mutated hERG were anaesthetized with ether, their legs started to shake non-stop, not unlike the dance
It’s important in drug discovery because compounds affecting hERG are badddd”

“There’s also a badass sounding protein called Son of Sevenless (SOS), named so because there’s another protein called Sevenless. There’s also another protein named Bride of Sevenless (BOSS)”

“I suddenly recall a gene by the name of Ken and Barbie, because mutations in that gene causes a lack of external genitalia, not unlike the groins of its namesake”