Where do names for new microorganisms from? Apparently, the powers that be will accept names from science fiction—Star Wars, in the case of Midichloria mitochondrii, bacteria discovered within mitochondria in tick ova.
Discoverer Nate Lo named them after “midichlorians,” the fictional creatures that exist inside the cells of living beings and communicate the Force.
Nate, personal note: Star Wars = criminal geekage. And this is from someone who nearly maxed the Nerd Test. Please do not discover some beastie that reminds you of Jar Jar Binks. How about basing a name on something cool like replicants next time?
h/t Aetiology.
Filed under: Humor, biological science
My nerd test has been skewed by the events of the past several years.
It used to be very close to the center and a little to the right ( maybe that made me a “bull’s eye” target for what happened).
This test was just short of Gandhi and Mandela.
I won’t go into a tedious explanation except to quote in essence an ancient Chinese Proverb.
“We grow to soon old, and too late smart”
Sorry, that was my political test from an earlier post you made “Where does your political compass point?”.
I had that one saved under the same name “bugsNgas” and commented then pasted the wrong thing.
My nerd test was 97%.
The last comment still applies and of course always will.
One more click I found this, thank you, god knows where I will be after this.