Stupid Science word

[thegnat]

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Stupid Science Word of the Month
Montypythonoides riversleighensis, n., an extinct Australian snake

In 1985, the christeners of a new genus of 15-million-year-old 30-foot-long fossil python they called Montypythonoides said the new slitherer “was found on a small hill, or monti.” They got away with it, but not for long. “Everybody who has a pet python calls it Monty,” says paleontologist John Scanlon of the Riversleigh Fossil Centre in Queensland, Australia.

The name was short-lived anyhow. More fossils, such as a toothed jawbone fragment (left), unearthed in the following decades forced a reclassification of the fossil into an already existing genus, dooming the joke to oblivion. Still, the former British comedy troupe lives on in posterity: Each of the six members has an eponymous asteroid, and a living species of long-legged, woolly lemur commemorates one of the troupe’s founders, John Cleese (Avahi cleesei).

personally I love these.

perhaps I'll keep coming up with funny science words that I see around.

[aude]

Here is a funny medical term to help with something :)

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Just editing this

How to pronounce:
pneu·mo·no·ul·tra·mi·cro·scop·ic·sil·i·co·vol·ca·n o·co·ni·o·sis

Definition:
an obscure term ostensibly referring to a lung disease caused by silica dust

[thegnat]

Thanks aude :)

this is going to be my source for quite a few of these terms (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)
So if you want to "read ahead" go ahead....but I'll highlight my favorites as we go :) I think they deserve some recognition of their own...

Modified to show other amusing names:

Buckminster Fullerene

This is the famous soccerball-shaped molecule that won its discoverers the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 1996. It is named after the architect Buckminster Fuller who designed the geodesic dome exhibited at Expo '67 in Montreal, from which Sir Harry Kroto got the idea how 60 Carbon atoms could be arranged in a perfectly symmetrical fashion. Because the name of the molecule is a bit of a mouthful, it is often referred to just as a Bucky Ball. It's also known as 'Footballene' by some researchers. In fact, there is now a whole 'fullerene zoo', with oddly coined names, including: Buckybabies (C32, C44, C50, C58), Rugby Ball (C70), Giant Fullerenes (C240, C540, C960), Russian Egg or Bucky Onions (balls within balls), Fuzzyball (C60H60), Bunnyball (C60(OsO4)(4-t-Butylpyridine)2), Platinum-Burr Ball ({[(C2H5)3P]2Pt}6C60) and Hetero-fullerenes (in which some Cs are replaced by other atoms).
There is also a fullerene paper in which the authors describe a method for severing two adjacent bonds in C60, entitled "There Is a Hole in My Bucky" [J. Am. Chem. Soc., 117 (1995) 7003].

Thanks to A. Haymet for the info regarding footballene, and to Charles Turner for the names of the other fullerenes which came from: 'Fullerenes', by Robert F. Curl and Richard E. Smalley, Scientific American October 1991, and to Tom Hawkins for the JACS reference.

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Buckyballs ;D

[aude]

I like that arsole Molecule one ,kinda humorous. All though why would they mention adam ant of all people is beyond me

[aude]

heres one that seems too dumb for any one to care to try to pronounce:

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yes its a link but it is too long for the forum to handle :)

[cielo market]

Buckyballs ;D

That, my friend, is roffle-worthy.

Anybody remember the Indiana Jones Spider? Calponia harrisonfordi. I think he also has an ant species named after him, too.

[thegnat]

yeah buckyballs and their derivatives are definitely roffle-worthy ;D

I think the medical term mentioned above at 45 letters is one of the longest words

but i've used a 41 letter word at hmm...I forget it dammit! it's not tetraphenylcyclopentadienone or hexaphenylbenzene. Apparently I forget. Oh well. I swear I counted 41 letters for a chemical name I used. I forget which one though.

Anywho - the titin protein:
I think it has like 118 yl combinations (read about it somewhere before I forget where and don't count me on the number). Because basically "yl" means that there's a group attached to the backbone of the molecule. 2-methylpropanol I think is also isopropanol.

[Ru(bpy)X] complexes are fun to say because they're pronounced "Rubipy"

terpyridine complexes are "terpy"

Personally I like moronic acid

Unununium is also one of my favorites to say. It's an element :)

[aude]

Yeah some of those chemical names can be quiet annoying to remember what they are and what there purpose is suppose to be. Too bad there were not any way to shorten them so its easier to rember those complex names

[thegnat]

Yeah some of those chemical names can be quiet annoying to remember what they are and what there purpose is suppose to be. Too bad there were not any way to shorten them so its easier to rember those complex names

Actually - nomenclature has a system to it (IUPAC). SO theoretically if you know the name you can draw the structure and if you know the structure you can know the (IUPAC at least) name.

And names can really be broken down into components. you have side chains, you have the main part of the molecule, you have the type of molecule it is.

Tetra=4 phenyl=a phenyl group - a ring, won't draw it cyclo= it's a ring penta = 5 di=2 en(e)= double bond, one = ketone

therefore you have 4 phenyl groups around a 5-membered ring with two double bonds that's a ketone.

tetraphenylcyclopentadienone

edit:

an easier one.
octane.
oct(a) = 8 ane = alkane which means all carbons are single bonded to each other and have respective amounts of hydrogens bonded.
CH3CH2CH2CH2CH2CH2CH2CH3 octane :)

cyclooctane
octane in a ring :) minus a couple hydrogens to allow it to form a ring :)

[aude]

Thats true when you break down the components, it does get a little bit easier. I havent dealt with chemistry in a while so i am kinda weak in that area as we speak. It took me a few seconds to realize what you where conveying there :). I lost most of the chemical names that i remembered. I guess its time for a refesher some time soon

[thegnat]

Thats true when you break down the components, it does get a little bit easier. I havent dealt with chemistry in a while so i am kinda weak in that area as we speak. It took me a few seconds to realize what you where conveying there :). I lost most of the chemical names that i remembered. I guess its time for a refesher some time soon

I'm hijacking my own thread. Sigh.

Perhaps I'll go more detailed soon with pictures and everything just for the hell of it.

to un-hijack my thread - The nerdiest of all funny names - at least one of them. I mean the silliness of this is solely due to the periodic table and the fact that us chemists really should pronounce it as per-iodic. But we're amused by it. Because of the periodic table. It's like our Bible. And our weird pronunciations. It's like unionized with 4 vs 3 syllables.

Periodic Acid

Ok, I know it should really be per-iodic acid, but without the hyphen it sounds like it only works some of the time...It has also been described as that acid extracted by boiling of old periodic tables found in chemistry lecture halls and laboratories.

Thanks to Allen Knutson for suggesting this molecule, and to Prof Walter Maya of California State Polytechnic University for some of the details.

[thegnat]

Unununium

I know this is technically an element, not a molecule, but it had such a ridiculous name I thought I'd include it. This is actually element number 111, and was called by the IUPAC temporary systematic name of unununium before it was recently renamed roentgenium. This is a pity, because if it formed ring or cage structures, previously we might have ended up with unununium onions...

[See Pure and Appl. Chem. 51 (1979) 381 for the naming scheme]. Thanks to Chris Fellows for info about its new name.

This is my absolute favorite element to say.

In high school in my Chem I class (I took AP Chem too), my review team was "Unununium" We kicked a** by the way. Isn't that just the greatest name ever? ununun...isn't that a triple negative?

And it does sound like onion. try saying unununium onion five times fast (or even typing it for that matter). I used to say Yunyun for Onion. hehe.

Plus it's number 111. Look at the symmetry! And 3 1s? What could be a better atomic number? I'm a big fan of the "fries" or "bread sticks".

And the symbol is Uuu!

3 u's 3 un's 3 1's what could be better?