Author: russhodge

I am a science writer at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, author of fiction and popular science books, an artist, and a professional musician who performs on the viola da gamba and Medieval and Renaissance stringed instruments. I edit manuscripts of all types and teach the full range of scientific communication skills. I am doing theoretical work in this subject - see for example https://goodsciencewriting.wordpress.com/2018/03/11/ghosts-models-and-meaning-in-science/

Updates to the Devil’s dictionary AND a special new cartoon series!

See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.

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Today’s topic: PERSPIRATION and its many derivatives.

perspire  etymology: from the Latin per, which means with or through, and spire, which is the pointy thing on top of a church; the compound perspire is probably derived from the fact that a spire is awfully darned heavy and whoever has to carry it up all those stairs to mount the thing on the roof is bound to emit some sweat. Perspiration is an involuntary process in which anywhere from 1 to 1 billion pores of the skin open and release a fluid that covers the skin. The precise composition of this liquid is a mystery, at least to me, unless you have eaten garlic recently. Perspiration is found in many living species, and a few nonliving ones, although I’m not sure about fish. They probably perspire, but measurements are technically challenging, and it’s hard to see the point. Whatever, this wide pattern of evolutionary conservation suggests that perspiration has some vital function, including some, all, or none of the following, respectively: 1) it provides an outlet for fluids so that an organism won’t explode if something goes wrong with its bladder; 2) it has antiseptic properties, which is why mothers use it to wash your face, although you’d rather they didn’t in public places; 3) under certain lighting conditions it diffracts light in a manner that renders a person invisible, which is helpful in evading predators, such as your boss, an unpleasant relative, or a loan shark; 4) some of it slews off a person (the perspirer) and hits anyone following him (the perspiree), for example during the Tour de France, who undoubtedly find this bit of precipitation refreshing, unless the perspirer’s perspiration contains trace amounts of banned substances that might later appear in the urine of the perspiree (One defense tactic attempted by Lance Armstrong, which fell through because there was rarely anyone in front of him, and he was unable to come up with a convincing mechanism by which perspiration could overcome the laws of physics); 5) it contains pheromones that attract a member of the opposite sex, but only briefly; later your partner becomes habituated to it, which comprises the middle period of a marriage, and finally develops an allergy to it, which can be quickly cured by divorce, murder, or some other method of separating spouses. It should be noted that there is a weak correlation between perspiring and doing work. Perspiration is also correlated with lying. Therefore signs of perspiration may mean you were working, you were not working but are lying about it, you were working and lie about it, or some fourth alternative, such as a rare condition not yet recognised by medical science but will be named for your doctor if it kills you.

Perspiration has been spun off into many derivatives, including:

  • aspire  to intend or plan to perspire
  • respire  to perspire again if it didn’t have the desired effects the first time
  • inspire  to motivate others to perspire
  • conspire  to perspire with at least one other person, usually while participating in a free-time activity such as reproduction, or a plot to overthrow the government
  • expire  to perspire to an excessive degree with fatal consequences
  • transpire to perspire across traditional boundaries between disciplines or genders; another meaning is the brief state of spiritual enlightenment that sometimes follows  heavy perspiration, but prior to the onset of the heart attack.
  • expire  to perspire to an excessive degree with fatal consequences
  • despire an existential Angst related to anxiety about perspiration performance, or a feeling that perspiration has lost its spiritual significance; this can also mean to physically remove the tower and spire of a church, usually as a college prank, then relocate it to somewhere unexpected: the back seat of the convertible that belongs to the head of your department, the breakfast cereal aisle of a grocery store, or the International Space Station.
  • perspiritus  an alcoholic beverage made from fermented perspiration
  • prospire  to perspire professionally
  • perspirosome  the cellular compartment that synthesizes perspiration
  • panperspirum hypothesis  the theory that life on Earth arrived in the form of extraterrestrial perspiration borne by comets, spaceships, or shed by aliens during the Tour de France.
  • Perspi-cola  a soft drink that was marketed very briefly in the 1980s. Stories that the drink contained naturally-produced perspiration is probably an urban legend; over a period of about 20 years, Perpsi-cola chemists had developed a synthetic version that was virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. The drink was removed from the market after three days due to its failure to attract a loyal customer base, probably because it tasted disgusting.

If you like the Devil’s Dictionary, you will probably enjoy these older posts:

Letting science communication (and a cat) out of a box

Some little-known facts about Kansas

Plus the other pieces in the categories “satire”, “science cabaret,” and “hilarious moments in science communication.” And there are, of course, many serious pieces on the site.

Feel free to pass along the link to your fellow science nerds! And, of course, quote the Devil’s Dictionary – just remember the reference! All material here is copyrighted Russ Hodge.

Today’s updates in the Devil’s Dictionary

See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.

3707_001

 

ambiguity  a mental state resembling the condition when someone can’t decide which of your eyes to look at and keeps shifting right-left-right-left until you want to punch them: cognitive eyeball pingpong.

optimism  hopeful expectation without any evidence to back it up. The first stage in depression.

penetrance  the degree to which some genetic or medical condition that you have – such as a cleft chin, or a mosquito bite – annoys you, and as a result the extent to which you annoy everyone around you.

straightforward  moving ahead in a direct line no matter what the impairment, such as during a sobriety test conducted on the highway.

truncate  to reduce the size of something so that it will fit into a chest, for example by chopping off its limbs.

 

If you like the Devil’s Dictionary, you will probably enjoy these older posts:

Searching for Oslo: a non-hypothesis-driven approach

Ontogeny recapitulates sobriety: from the Archaeal origins of life to the pinnacle of evolution: a PhD

Plus the other pieces in the categories “satire”, “science cabaret,” and “hilarious moments in science communication.” And there are, of course, many serious pieces on the site.

Feel free to pass along the link to your fellow science nerds! And, of course, quote the Devil’s Dictionary – just remember the reference! All material here is copyrighted Russ Hodge.

The Devil’s dictionary, July 5 update

See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.

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classification  a system for dividing life into logical groups: organic, semi-organic, inorganic, semi-literate, unmarriable.

correlation  something that happens shortly before, during, or after something else, making you think they are causally connected. Usually the two things need to appear together more than once to be considered a correlation, but maybe it’s a rare event, and you just haven’t waited long enough. A lot of things, for example, correlate with “when Hell freezes over,” which surely doesn’t happen that often. And sometimes personal circumstances prevent a correlation from taking place, even though you want it to. For example, there’s a correlation between having a birthday and getting birthday cards, but sometimes people just forget. If you uncorrelated your friends, they’d probably feel upset. So it’s better to tell them, next time you see them, “There’s a correlation between having your birthday and gettings cards from your friends,” and they’ll surely get the hint.

sprocket  a wheel-like cog that screws onto the doohickey that fell off the thingamajig.

doohickey  a small knob or control on a thingamajig that does damnedifIknow.

thingamajig  a piece of laboratory equipment whose technical name you can always remember until just the moment you need it, at which point it is always being used by what’s-her-name. You know that the lab has a second thingamajig somewhere – which you call a whatchamacallit so that people will know what you’re talking about, but you can’t find it, either. The conversation that ensues goes like this:

“Have you seen the thingamajig? I really need it.”

“Which thingamajig are you talking about?”

“The one that what’shername is using.”

“Really? I thought she she’d finished with the thingamajig. Why don’t you use the watchamacallit?”

“I can’t find it. I think it’s got a broken doohickey, anyway.”

“Ask what’shisname, he’s fixed a doohickey before, but I think it was the one on the thingamajig.”

If you like the Devil’s Dictionary, you might like:

Losing your heart in Heidelberg, then getting it back

or On the publication of “Remote sensing” by the magazine Occulto

 

The Devil’s dictionary, July 1 update

See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.

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premortal  a phase of life up to and including the moment of death, followed by embalming and a brief nap before hatching as a fully mature zombie.

law of independent assortment  the physical law dictating that during a migration to the laundry and back, one sock always vanishes. Despite extensive research, it has not yet been determined whether this occurs during transport or processing, nor is the mechanism known. A variety of hypotheses have been put forward: degradation, some bizarre fetish ritual, or cannibalism. A recent study suggests a novel alternative: the stress of centrifugation in a washing machine activates a color-switching gene. The sock is in fact still there, but is unrecognized by the foot. This does not explain why the number of outbound socks is even, but odd upon their return; the authors suggests that a counting defect might be involved.

effector  the person from the lab who makes regular trips to the funding agency in Brussels with the small silver suitcase full of cash handcuffed to his wrist. It’s permissible to turn over the bribe to any agent officially licensed by the EU, whose contact details are found on the proposal submission webpage. Please note that since last week, the credentials of all Bribe Officers with passports from the UK have been revoked.

If you like the Devil’s Dictionary, you might like:

Losing your heart in Heidelberg, then getting it back

or On the publication of “Remote sensing” by the magazine Occulto

 

The Devil’s dictionary, June 26th update

See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.

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Fourier transform  a mathematical formula which compresses something long and tedious so that it all happens at once.  Using the Fourier transform, you could hear Richard Wagner’s four-opera cycle Der Ring des Niebelungen, which take anywhere between 15 hours and 15 days to perform, depending on at what point the conductor dies, in a single moment in which all the notes would be played simultaneously. This saves a lot of time and probably resembles the listening experience one would have while on LSD. How does the Fourier transform work? First, you need a microphone. This should be plugged directly into an envelope function that shapes the continuous sinusoid (a structure in the nose) into a short pulse shaped like a Gaussian function. I haven’t the slightest idea what that means, or what precisely goes in your nose, but the main thing is it appears to work. You can try it yourself, just be warned: the end result is really loud. Theoretically you can undo it again, by reversing or inverting or decongesting the transform, or maybe just sneezing really hard, but I don’t know if this has ever been successful. The last time they tried, what came out wasn’t Der Ring des Niebelungen, but the song, “I wish I had an Oscar Meyer wiener.” But I think they left out the ^ over the f in the following formula:

 fourier

intellectual property   the first step in a lawsuit.

median  the invisible line in a lab separating your work space from that of your immediate neighbor in any direction. Nothing should cross the median. Not even a shadow. On a highway, crossing the median will likely lead to a fiery collision and death. The consequences for crossing the median in a lab are unimaginably worse, and cannot be reprinted here. You must obtain a visa and give notice of your travel intentions several months in advance. Vaccinations are not obligatory, although it’s always wise to keep your tetanus booster up-to-date. Note that airspace belongs to the bench directly below it, up to the ventilation hood, and any violation will result in a drone strike.

 

The Devil’s dictionary, June 26th update

See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.

3707_001

dosage compensation  a formula which calculates the proper number of cups of coffee needed to make up for each hour of missed sleep; a logarithmic scale should be used to plot the results. In genetics, dosage compensation refers to the activities undertaken by a chromosome to control the behavior of its crazy twin.

European Union  Not to be confused with the “European Onion,” a common mistake in the UK, because “Onion” sounds like it begins with “un-“. It is unclear how many voters in the recent referendum were aware they were voting about their country’s participation in a political entity. Apparently many believed that Great Britain was under attack by a large, aromatic vegetable bulb. Probably a CRISPR/Cas experiment that escaped from the lab. In those circumstances, you’d vote to exit the Onion, too.

holy grail  something that is being sought by everyone in a field, such as a four-leaf clover, or your group leader’s car keys. There are lots of holy grails; each discipline has one. The holy grail does for research what a treasure hunt accomplishes at a child’s birthday party: it keeps everyone busy, out of trouble, and far away. If by chance someone should actually find the holy grail, everyone comes in for a piece of cake, at which point an authority figure determines that no, a mistake has been made. This is not the holy grail; it is actually something else, and the scientists are sent back outside to look some more. The best way to ensure that the party runs smoothly is to find the holy grail, for example the Higgs boson, before the party ever begins. Then put it on your chair and sit on it the whole time so that there is no chance that it will be found.

regulation  In cells, a range of mechanisms whose function is to prevent everything from happening at the same time. In governmental affairs, a process involving bureaucrats whose function is to try to prevent anything from happening at all.

Friday’s updates in the Devil’s Dictionary

See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.

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emeritus  a status in academia which is the functional equivalent of taxidermy or pickling, depending on whether the starting material was considered rather fauna or rather flora by departmental colleagues.

therefore  the answer to the question, “Wherefore?”

utter, utterly  an emphatic word, almost always negative, associated with the milk-producing glands of a cow. To say that a competitor’s hypothesis is “utter nonsense” is to imply that it should be chewed up, passed through a bovine digestive tract, and ejected from the scientific literature by squeezing firmly on a large teat. Not to be confused with “otter” or “otterly”.

If you like the Devil’s Dictionary, you will probably enjoy these older posts:

Searching for Oslo: a non-hypothesis-driven approach

Ontogeny recapitulates sobriety: from the Archaeal origins of life to the pinnacle of evolution: a PhD

Plus the other pieces in the categories “satire”, “science cabaret,” and “hilarious moments in science communication.” And there are, of course, many serious pieces on the site.

Feel free to pass along the link to your fellow science nerds! And, of course, quote the Devil’s Dictionary – just remember the reference! All material here is copyrighted Russ Hodge.

Today’s updates in the Devil’s Dictionary

See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.

3707_001

competitor  a scientist who, for some reason, has taken a wrong turn on the Path to Enlightenment, accepts false doctrine, and despite your best efforts, refuses to admit the error of his or her ways.

collaborator  a competitor with whom a temporary cease-fire has been negotiated.

regulation  a process in cells involving many molecules whose function is to prevent everything from happening at the same time; in governmental affairs, a process involving bureaucrats whose function is to try to prevent anything from happening at all.

If you like the Devil’s Dictionary, you will probably enjoy these older posts:

Searching for Oslo: a non-hypothesis-driven approach

Ontogeny recapitulates sobriety: from the Archaeal origins of life to the pinnacle of evolution: a PhD

Plus the other pieces in the categories “satire”, “science cabaret,” and “hilarious moments in science communication.” And there are, of course, many serious pieces on the site.

Feel free to pass along the link to your fellow science nerds! And, of course, quote the Devil’s Dictionary – just remember the reference! All material here is copyrighted Russ Hodge.

The Devil’s Dictionary: today featuring the letter “P”

Today’s entries in the Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases all start with the letter P:

pipeline  the sequential application of many technologies to a scientific problem, forming a sort of artificial digestive tract in which raw materials enter one end and a Wurst-like object emerges at the other. A pipeline is usually constructed by lining up every instrument in the lab in a long row, end to end, in any order you please, so that what emerges from one passes directly into the opening of the next, preferably without human handling. Any technology may be included in the pipeline, including automated X-ray crystallography devices, musical instruments, mousetraps, the lab sprinkler system, and devices people use to alter the three-dimensional structure of their hair. For models of pipelines see the work of Rube Goldberg.

placebo  a treatment or action that has no value whatsoever, since it lacks an active substance that might have some positive effect on an organism’s well-being – a diploma is a good example of a placebo.

postdoc  a person in the lab who, after many years of training, is able to understand the odd mumbling sounds made by a group leader and translate them into occupational therapy activities for predocs, technicians, and other lower forms of life, using equipment on hand in the laboratory. The qualifications needed by a postdoc include: dexterity with a bullwhip; the ability to build a gin distillery using laboratory equipment; basic first aid skills, including the ability to reattach limbs on the proper person and correct side of the body; Black Ops training for carrying out sorties against competitors; and the ability to write sentences of at least four words using proper punctuation, then enhance them with 80 or 90 superfluous words to demonstrate a profound, impenetrable intellect. Candidates with any of the additional skills or experience will be given preference: an internship in a circus (involving the handling of large, aggressive animals); computer hacking (scientific journals), and ventriloquism (when the group leader loses his/her voice or train of thought). (requested by Fatimunnisa Qadri, MDC)

If you like the Devil’s Dictionary, you will probably enjoy these older posts:

Searching for Oslo: a non-hypothesis-driven approach

Ontogeny recapitulates sobriety: from the Archaeal origins of life to the pinnacle of evolution: a PhD

Plus the other pieces in the categories “satire”, “science cabaret,” and “hilarious moments in science communication.” And there are, of course, many serious pieces on the site.

Feel free to pass along the link to your fellow science nerds! And, of course, quote the Devil’s Dictionary – just remember the reference! All material here is copyrighted Russ Hodge.