Fun fact: I thought ubiquitin was made up for a long time because it was such a ridiculous name that I assumed it was one of those made up non specific names that professors use on exams
ever since i learned about sonic hedgehog i realized that nobody was ever kidding about protein names
Ladies and Gentlemen (and others) I give you:
Sonic the Hedgehog
Other fun proteins include:
Kinase Kinase Kinase Kinase
CHEAPDATE
Spaghetti Squash
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY IS THE WORST
This one is solidly on the biochemists and the fly geneticists. For once it’s not the molecular biologists fault.
The fly geneticists always seem to come up with the weird stuff. Like the many strains of flies named after vegetables.
Speaking of fly genes:
Sevenless Son of sevenless Bride of sevenless Seven in abstentia
Because every group of related genes should read like a short and tragic family drama
Can we also talk about JAK1 and JAK2 of the JAK-STAT signaling pathway, which were originally named “Just Another Kinase” before their importance was understood?
Seriously, it kills me when I see people hold scientists up as pinnacles of logic and reason.
Because one time the professor I was interning for got punched in the face by another professor, because mine got the funding, and told the other professor his theory was stupid.
This same professor told me to throw rocks to scare the “stupid fucking crabs” into moving so we could count them properly.
SCIENCE
thank you
this is one of the best comments this post has recieved
I have witnessed:
Two professors hiding around a corner and snickering, “Shhh, here she comes!” While a female professor approached and, when she finally found them, she proceeded to scream while pointing from one to the other, “You! I called your office but you weren’t there! So I tried to call YOUR office to figure out where HE was but YOU weren’t there!”
Two grad students standing outside a closed and locked door yelling, “Come out of the damn office. You haven’t left for days. If you didn’t have a couch in there I’d be concerned as to where you were sleeping!”
A religious studies professor apologizing for being late to class because, “security stopped me because I’m dressed like a hobbit”
Watched a professor snort the results of my experiment to determine if I had the right final compound.
Two archeology professors toss priceless fossilized teeth back and forth in an attempt to figure out who is smarter by “guessing the type of tooth and species of animal before it lands”
Multiple fully degreed individuals throw dry ice at one another in an attempt to be first to use the lab/get that piece of equipment/or change the iPod song.
A genetics professor build furniture out of stacks of paper and planks of wood because she is that far behind in grading papers/responding. One of the impromptu furniture pieces housed a fish tank.
I could go on but I think that covers the larger portion of the insanity…
Every time it comes around on my dash, it gets better.
– I have had a professor buy a huge fuckoff bottle of rum during fieldwork in Costa Rica and let the undergrads get wasted because “you’re not underage in Costa Rica and we’ll be up all night with the bats anyway!”
– Same professor hung a bat from her headlamp and wore it as a decoration for an entire night.
– A whole swarm of older women – and these are women with PhDs and world-renown bat experts, the bigwigs – all, to a woman, go to the formal charity dinner at an international research symposium in Toronto in late October dressed in skimpy Batgirl costumes. Because Halloween was that weekend, you see.
– At a different conference, a professor get blackout drunk and pass out on the side of the road.
– “Yeah, we have to say we did it properly for the grant but to be really honest, Miracle-gro works better.”
– Teaching lab: we had liquid nitrogen for a demo, and after class the professor, the other TA, and I spent a good two hours freezing and breaking things in it.
a chemistry class begins with 30 students nine months later just six of us left sitting on tables dipping paper into contaminated chemicals to see what happens when we burn it teacher making idle suggestions while he marks our work
“go to the fume hood thing, yeah now put some potassium in chlorine” can i burn the results sir? “fuck it sure whatever its tainted anyway”
The prof I’m working for just asked me if I knew how to pick a lock, and when I responded “yes” she replied, “see, this is why I hire the former delinquents instead of the suck-ups. You’re actually useful.”
Radio news announcer: At the University of Bath, paleontologists have discovered a fossil of a snake with four tiny little legs.
Dr Glass: *outraged* WHO DID THE THING
Radio news announcer: Now, I now what you’re thinking…
Dr Glass: NICK. THIS WAS NICK. NICK DID THE THING
Radio news announcer: “isn’t a snake with legs just a lizard?”
Dr Glass: FUCKNGI NICK
Radio news announcer: scientists assure you it is not. Researcher Nick –
Dr Glass: *doing a weird accent* “ner, it isn’t a lizaaaaaaaaarrrd.”
Nick (on the radio): *a pleasant-sounding, yet defensive and slightly on-edge American* it isn’t a lizard. it has a hinged jaw. it has belly scales. it isN’T a liZARD –
Dr Glass (to the radio): WHATEVER NICK WE DON’T CARE HOW MANY GRIZZLY BEARS YOU’VE PUNCHED
Me: what
Dr Glass: possibly Kodiak bears
Although the conversation above raised more questions than it answered, I decided to flex my incredible palaeo-art skills for this:
did you know: i am demonstrably not an artist but I have actually contributed drawn figures to a published paleontological paper
they’ll let any fucker in these days
update:
Dr Glass: did you show the picture to Nick
Me: I don’t know Nick.
Dr Glass: you met him at Famous Bloody J’s
Me: I’ve never met snake-legs-man. You paleontologists with your little global hivemind, expecting everyone on the planet to know each other like the Illuminati.
Dr Glass: you drank Famous Bloody J’s homebrew together
Me: okay… that sounds fake but okay
Dr Glass: you’ve met him! You’ve met Nick! YOU TALKED ABOUT BEARS
Me: OH
Me: OH WAIT
Me: OH, PLAID GUY
Me: GOOD OLD LUMBERJACK PLAID GUY, WE HAD SUCH GOOD TIMES