Things that are not entirely interchangeable.

In heavy throughput grading mode, you sometimes notice interesting confusions or conflations. Among those I’ve noticed the past week:

  • “The chemical” for “the bacterium”. (Sure, a bacterium is composed of chemicals, but it’s got something extra, that spark of life, right? Or am I being a silly vitalist here?)
  • IUPAC” for “IACUC“. I reckon you probably do want to use the correct nomenclature when describing the compounds you use in any research (including research with animals), but IUPAC has no special powers to approve or oversee your research protocols.
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Posted in Academia, Passing thoughts, Teaching and learning.

3 Comments

  1. At the beginning of each semester, I explicitly remind my students that I don’t want to read about “Reeses monkeys” because I might get hungry, and likewise that there is no such primate as a “cotton-top tamarind”

  2. When I was a graduate student at Tulane, this answer was given on a test. “Bacteria is very small. Bacteria is all around us. Bacteria lays 20,000 eggs a day.” Various faculty had different ideas as to how right or wrong this answer is. I would say not that bad on broad concepts, but shaky on details.

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