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As usual, feel free to use and repost. Just cite “copyright 2016 by Russ Hodge” and link to this site.
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Yet another update to the Devil’s dictionary!!!
See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.
all entries in the Devil’s Dictionary copyright 2016 by Russ Hodge
allorecognition the ability to recognize yourself, rather than mistaking yourself for someone else, such as a famous person, a plant or a piece of furniture, or confusing a part of yourself with a part of someone else. Allorecognition can be improved by looking in the mirror every morning, naming the person you see there, and then checking your identity papers. If there’s any doubt, stab the person or body part in question with a sharp object such as a fork. If it hurts, you have accomplished allorecognition. Otherwise you have stabbed someone else and should apply first aid. Or you may be suffering from a rare congenital condition that makes you insensitive to pain, in which case you should still perceive a sensation of pressure as the tines penetrate your skin.
inbreeding a theory developed to resolve the “multiplicity of ancestors paradox,” explaining why there are more people alive today than in previous generations. Until the 19th century, people believed that every person alive had two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on, which means that each generation you go back in the past, the population doubles, in a geometric progression. Thus the population of the Earth only 100 generations ago would have been 2 to the power of 100, or 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376, not counting anyone that failed to have children. Since the surface of the Earth is approximately 510,000,000,000 square meters, and supposing that four people can be crammed into a square meter providing they don’t eat very much, this would have created a stack 621,397,350,000,000,000 people high. Assuming an average height of 1,5 meters, although those on the bottom layers would be somewhat shorter due to atmospheric pressure as well as that of all the people standing on them, this would create a stack extending 932,096,030,000,000 kilometers above the surface of the Earth, in all directions, meaning that you have to double it, creating a diameter which would extend about 6,328 times beyond the orbit of Pluto around the sun. Realizing that this situation could cause difficulties, for example by creating a massive black hole, ancient cultures permitted marriages between cousins.
omnis ovum e ovum the theory that every egg arises from an existing egg, through the mechanism of a chicken, or perhaps a dinosaur. Unless chicken nuggets are involved, which are raised in laboratories and have been genetically engineered to be infertile.
omnis pullum e pullum the theory that every chicken arises from an existing chicken, through the mechanism of an egg, unless the egg produces a dinosaur, or you have bought the chicken from one of those trucks with a rotisserie, which has roasted the chicken for such sustained periods that its DNA no longer permits a proper species identification.
qualifier a word or phrase that scientists generally attach to every assertion so that in 10 or 20 or 50 years, when it is proven wrong, you won’t be too embarrassed, unless you have reason to believe that you will no longer be alive because, for example, you will be burned at the stake. For example, “Possibly it is thinkably presumable that our putative explanation is perhaps likely be somewhat true, at least on Tuesdays, although we are probably not yet entirely capable of controlling some of the potential variables that might impinge on the process and one should rather consider, as a means of eventually eliminating all other eventual potential conceivable explanations for what we believe we may have observed.”
On one’s deathbed, it is permissible to make assertions, such as, “And yet it moves.” (Galileo Galilei)
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and
The Devil’s dictionary, Aug. 10 update
See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.
data the scientific version of the art term “dada”: an international collective activity which promotes self-fulfilling public gatherings, demonstrations, the publication of journals, and the placement of urinals and snow shovels as art in museums, until a member of the public misinterprets their aesthetic intent and uses them for the purposes they were originally intended. (Thanks to Ted Johnson, Lawrence, Kansas, Professor emeritus extraordinaire!)
exaggerate a standard statistical procedure applied to data that has been analyzed but revealed some slight inconsistencies or failed to live up to expectations. When an important item in a study has a bad day and underperforms, a scientist is allowed to add a small bonus to restore its normal ranking compared to the other values, as a show of confidence that it will do better next time. This has a motivational function, and should not increase the original score by more than 2 or 3 orders of magnitude.
cell cycle the phases of events that define periods in the life of a dividing cell, named after the stereotypical segments in James Bond films: prophase (the action sequence before the Song and the opening credits, which are displayed against a backdrop of swimming, flying, or burning silhouettes of naked females); M phase (Bond visits the office of his superior and is reprimanded for some inappropriate behavior, after which he continues the behavior as if the discussion never happened); Q phase (in which he is given a wristwatch that turns itself into a helicopter, submarine, or releases an atomic missile depending on which button is pressed); interphase (during which you can buy popcorn); X phase (the parts you would like to see but don’t get to, so that the film can retain an “R” rating); hangover phase (also normally cut from the films, but is adequately covered in the following PubMed articles: Shaken, not stirred: did James Bond have an alcohol problem? and Were James Bond’s drinks shaken because of alcohol induced tremor?
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PRELIMINARY DRAFT OF THE MINUTES FROM THE 9,154,388,279,911,101,314TH MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN
and:
On-line etiquette for clones (with a few tips for zombies)
At long last! Updates to the Devil’s dictionary, Aug. 10
See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.
anterior the part of the body above the posterior, provided you have access to gravity, and are not standing on your head. Otherwise, place your hands on your posterior; the anterior end is everything in the opposite direction.
posterior if you are sitting down, what you’re sitting on; otherwise, what you would be sitting on, and everything below it. The posterior is also the part of a person that you have to ask your spouse whether it is getting too fat.
ventral the part of an organism that expands in direct proportion to the amount of beer that is consumed.
dorsal the region of a person that is opposite the ventral side; the part you can’t scratch or see without access to a mirror. If the ventral side is the side of a hotdog you put mustard and horseradish on, the dorsal side is the part near the bun.
p value In statistics, the p value is a number which indicates whether life is a sequence of random events with no meaning, or whether the universe really is out to get you. The p value can be useful when an experiment doesn’t work and you must decide whether to repeat it. While it may work the second time around, there’s always a risk that the results might turn out even worse; you might, for example, acidentally create some antimatter. Even if you created only a tiny little amount, hardly anything at all, not even a dollop, it doesn’t take much to cause the solar system to implode. Since this has never happened before, it’s hard to estimate the probability that it will on any given day. The p-value might hover at around 0.03 for weeks or months, and then suddenly, within just a few minutes, jump into the millions. If you’ve ever seen it happen, it’s pretty impressive. In general, scientists try to keep the p value for undesirable things as low as they can and raise it as high as possible for things they would like to happen. This is possible because the probability of the bad thing is often almost exactly the inverse of the probability of something good. In figuring the p value, put in any quantitative information that might be relevant.
As an exercise, estimate the p value of a zombie apocalypse. Here the only quantitative value you really need to determine is the maximum number of days that it might take until the zombie apocalypse occurs, which is probably the total number of days left before the sun expends all its energy, providing scientists are unable to develop a zombie apocalypse inhibitor beforehand. Since scientists place the future lifespan of the sun at about five billion years, the likelihood that a zombie apocalypse will occur on any given day is 5 billion x 365.4 (1,827,000,000,000). So the p value will be p = 1/1,827,000,000,000. Remember that tomorrow you will need to recalculate; tomorrow the p value will be 1/1,826,999,999,999. (Note, if your experiment involves antimatter, there won’t be any days left before the zombie apocalypse occurs, so p = 1/0; this is an irrational number, but you won’t be around to worry about it.)
In clinical science, the p value represents the amount a clinic will pay you for a warm cup of urine, or charge you for it, depending on whether they are asking you for the urine or you are asking them to take it from you.
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The Devil’s dictionary, Aug. 10 update
See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.
concatenate to line up cats in a row, so that you can rapidly apply some procedure or treatment simultaneously, rather than having to chase down each cat individually to remove its sex organs.
dominance a sado-masochistic relationship between alleles, whereby one gets to use the whips and the ropes and the other submits to it.
hybridization a process by which members of two different species mate, willingly or by force, sometimes simply out of desperation, possibly without realizing it, for example at a costume party, and produce offspring that will have species identity issues their entire lives.
neutralize to emasculate a chemical substance.
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Some little-known facts about Kansas
Cartoon special: The Case of the Kidnaped Co-factor
A Wnt Signaling Mystery
copyright 2016 by Russ Hodge
dedicated, of course, to Walter Birchmeier, Grand Guru of Wnt
The Devil’s dictionary, July 1 update
See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.
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.
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The Devil’s dictionary, June 26th update
See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.
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:
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.
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.
Do proteins have free will? And other cartoons…
Finally a new batch. This time the themes are whether proteins have free will and a taste-test by ribosomes…
Feel free to use and repost – just give credit to the artist and provide a link to this website!
More cartoons appear in the monthly MDC newsletter Insights, so be sure to visit the website and check out some of our more “serious” content there!
And now for the ribosomes:
And once again, to kill the joke by explaining it:
Ribosomes build proteins by reading a three-letter code in RNA molecules (called a codon) and matching it to one of 20 amino acid building blocks. The nucleic acids “GAA” spell the code for glutamic acid, which is responsible for the taste of seaweed and is the source of monosodium glutamate.
Good Science Writing 