who was the fool who was tasked with naming the galaxy and the only adjective they could think of was ‘mmmmmmmmmmmmilky…’
scientist: (gazing up at space) scientist: ……….. it sure is a milky boy
NO
YOU DONT UNDERSTAND
ASTRONOMERS ARE THE SHITTIEST EVER AT NAMING THINGS I KID YOU NOT.
When it came time to name the two theoretical particle types that might be dark matter THEY INTENTIONALLY CHOSE THE NAMES SO THAT THE ACRONYMS WOULD SPELL “WIMPS” AND “MACHOS” I SHIT YOU NOT
THEY ARE FUCKING TERRIBLE AT NAMING ANYTHING
I just listened to a talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson himself LAST NIGHT and he went on about this more than once.
“I’m walking down the street and I’m like ‘ooh pretty rock…’ and some Geologist is like ‘actually, that’s anorthosite feldspar’ and I’m like ‘Nevermind, I don’t want it anymore.’ Any biologists in the audience? [some clapping] Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. The most important molecule in the human body, what did you name it? It has NINE SYLLABLES and it’s so long that even YOU GUYS abbreviate it as ‘DNA’!
But astrophysicists and astronomers? No, man, we call it like we see it. Star made of neutrons? NEUTRON STAR. Small white star? WHITE DWARF. You know that big red spot on Jupiter? Know what we called it? JUPITER’S RED SPOT.”
okay i’m glad you mentioned the biologist nonsense bc their naming methods are the bane of my existence
I see your astrophysicists-are-shit-at-names and raise you Marine-Biologists-Are-Fucking-Maniacs.
See this beautiful creature?
It’s a carnivorous deep-sea sponge that lives off of Easter Island and never sees the light of day, as it’s about 9000 feet down. Those delicate-looking orbs are covered in millions of tiny hooked spines, which latch onto anything unfortunate enough to bump into it, and hold it in place as it is digested alive by the sponge’s skin. Amazing, beautiful and profoundly creepy. They could have given it so many cool names. Could have drawn on mythology (I think Scylla would have been an appropriate reference), the region it was found in, the textured skin, PHAGOCYTOSIS, anything!
You wanna know what they called it?
PING-PONG TREE SPONGE.
Good job, marine biologists.
That’s so unfair, you can’t blame biologists for DNA. Biologists were going to call it “nuclein” because it’s IN the NUCLEUS, but the chemists said that was stupid.
It was a fair point tho. There was no other way to name deoxyribonucleic acid REALLY, as it is a chemical term – and as we all know, things named in chemistry have to follow a strict nomenclature. Basically, chemical names are like ship names – squishing together words that contain a lot of meta-information – except that instead of telling you about the relationship, they contain all the information you need to recreate the molecule. Anything ending in -ane (propane, methane, butane) is a type of Flammable Fuelly Stuff. Anything ending in -ose (glucose, fructose, sucrose, lactose) is a sugar. And so on. So since DNA is a serious chemical compound, it had to be named accordingly.
An alien chemist, looking at the name DNA, goes “oh, so you worked out how to stabilise RNA for long-term storage? Oh that is VERY CLEVER. Guys, check out this lifehack that the Earthlings did – you just knock an extra oxygen off the sugar. In fact, you de-oxy the ribose to make it!”
So most of the chemical compounds that biology is built on were named using official chemical nomenclature.
This is a good thing, looking at the track record of Biologists Naming Stuff. Especially geneticists. Who, among other crimes, named the gene that causes some fruit flies to get drunk better than other fruit flies “Cheap Date.”
This rapidly became problematic because it’s inappropriate to tell a pregnant couple, “sorry, your fetus is going to die, because it has a Tinman mutation. Err, meaning it has a tragic genetic defect and will have no heart. Sorry about the name, geneticists thought it would be funny.”
The nations of the world literally had to convene and create a system of nomenclature and rules determining what biologists are allowed to name and how we are allowed to do it. Sadly, even if you discover a new species all by yourself, you’re not allowed to name it “Tyrannosaurus bigfucker” – at least not any more – we did manage to sneak in some brilliant puns and hilarious names before the No Fun Allowed Curtain came down.
If it had been up to us, we probably would have named DNA “Twirly Fucker” or something.
Anyway the Milky Way is named because Northern Europeans named it using English, and in Northern European myths the cloudy star-trail visible in the sky (the arms of our galaxy, if you zoom out) looks like spilled milk. Milk is culturally important to Northern Europeans, so there you go. If Pawnee scientists had named it, it would be the Buffalo Dust Galaxy. It could’ve been worse, it could have been God Sperm Galaxy or something. Archaeoastronomy is the study of how ancient peoples interacted with and named the stars and it is fucked up, go learn about it.
“A long-term study of children
raised by lesbians found that these children were less likely
to suffer from physical and sexual abuse than were their peers
who were raised by heterosexuals. This is thought to be due to
the absence of adult heterosexual men in the households (Gartrell,
Bos, & Goldberg, 2010). Girls raised by
lesbians tend to have higher self-esteem, show more maturity
and tolerance than their peers, and are older when they have
their first heterosexual contact (Gartrell et al., 2005, 2010). Children
raised by same-sex parents seem to be less constrained by
traditional gender roles; boys are less aggressive, and girls are
more inclined to consider nontraditional careers, such as doctor,
lawyer, or engineer (Gartrell et al., 2005; Stacey & Biblarz,
2001). Over the course of more than 20 years, scientists studied
the psychological adjustment of 78 teenagers who were raised by lesbian mothers. Compared to age-matched counterparts raised
by heterosexual parents, these adolescents were rated higher
in social, academic, and total competence, and lower in social
problems, rule-breaking, aggression, and externalizing problem
behavior (Gartrell & Bos, 2010).
There are fewer studies of children raised by two men, but gay
fathers are more likely than straight fathers to put their children
before their career, to make big changes in their lives to accommodate
a child, and to strengthen bonds with their extended families
after becoming fathers (Bergman, Rubio, Green, & Padrone,
2010).” ~ Martha Rosenthal, Human Sexuality: From Cells to Society, p.247.
people actually get so used to benevolent weirdness in their towns like. if you started wearing a dracula cape everywhere in my town, everyone would just come to accept it.
“hey, was that the dude who wears dracula capes everywhere?”
“yeah, he’s really nice, I talked to him in rite aid once. sorta weird obviously, but cool.”
this post is so blessed bc all of the notes are just people talking about the benevolent weirdos in their towns and I hope they’re all having a good day out there, inspiring people to go out and wear their dracula capes or w/e
don’t put yourself out there for people who don’t care. for people who don’t put effort into a relationship. for people who don’t hold themselves accountable for their actions. surround yourself for people who make you feel loved. people who want to grow with you.
Solutions Without Problems 