29: What’s in a Scientific Name, How Many Cells are in a Human, and What the British Museum Stole

Episode notes

What is the science of scientific naming, and could it actually be life saving?  How many cells are in a human body, and why is it important to know?  And how exactly did the British Museum… “acquire” all these artifacts?

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We also learn about: what does tom smell like? naming is hard for computer science, naming is a science, reading 12 million paper titles by hand, single use acronyms, polynomial naming, Ranunculus mother of dragons, the dino hip mixup, smooth transitions, the fermium wars, we all know what happened to element 102, berkelium californium americium, should we name elements after living people, Ella is the only true Swiftie, half of all exoplanets are named Kepler, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now, why? she’s a millipede, Ella will get an answer, humans have 1 cell technically, c elegans has exactly 1031 cells, don’t embarrass yourself by saying how many cells are in a mouse, we enter the wheels and doors debate, Ella sperm fact rick rolls us, the number of kinds of cells, tom is bad at math, every time a scientist questions a number an angel gets its wings, Livers Georg, Ella is heartbroken we don’t have a number, what’s the point of counting cells? the British Museum keeps 99% of things in the disney vault, offering a replica of the rosetta stone instead, Britain legally cannot return items without government approval, all the stuff we never knew about Moai statues, what does queen Victoria need with a Moai statue, her majesty declares finders keepers, actualy these stolen things mean as much to Britain now, most Britains want the items returned, there is so much to learn from this!

Sources:

Judith Winston’s Review of Binomial Nomenclature
The Growth of Acronyms in the Scientific Literature
UA Medical Acronym
Dinosaur Hip Naming Mixup
How Many Named Species are Valid?
Review of the Transfermium Wars
IUPAC 1994 Naming Decision
Naming Exoplanets
A Flu by Any Other Name
Nature on WHO Naming
Taylor Swift’s Millipede

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Number of Bacteria In Your Body
Sperm
Types Of Cells In The Human Body
An Estimation Of The Number Of Cells In The Human Body

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Human Remains in the British Museum
British Museum: Rosetta Stone
British Museum: Moai of rapa Nui (Easter Island Statues)
CNN: British Museum Discusses fate of Easter Island Statues
British Museum: Benin Bronzes
The Guardian: British museum ‘Has Head in sand’ Over Return of Artefacts
British Museum: The Parthenon Sculptures
British Museum: Maqdala Collection
YouGuv: Should Britain Return Historical Artefacts to Their Country of Origin?
Culture war: the case against repatriating museum artifacts
NYT: Investigators, Citing Looting, Have Seized 27 Antiques From the Met
CNN: Manhattan DA returns 58 antiquities to Italy, including 21 seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art