Science, humor

Radovich, J., Talmage, D. W. Antigenic competition Cellular or humoral. Science 158, 512-514 (1967). 

It is a pleasure to contribute this paper to a volume celebrating the 65th birthday of Yngve Ohrn. Yngve is my official Mentor at the University of Florida, and he is an inspiration to me, both personally and professionally. Yngve has taught me that to do science you have to be tough, but also have a sense of humor. 

Me Cabe MJ Jr. Metropolitan Center for Higher Technology, Detroit, Ml Mechanisms and consequences of Pb modulation of cell-mediated and humoral immunity (in vitro culture system mice in vivo) National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences... 

This third edition of Analytical Chemistry for Technicians is the culmination and final product of a series of four projects funded by the National Science Foundation s Advanced Technological Education Program and two supporting grants from the DuPont Company. The grant funds have enabled me to utilize an almost limitless reservoir of human and other resources in the development and completion of this manuscript and to vastly improve and update the previous edition. A visible example is the CD that accompanies this book. This CD, which was not part of the previous editions, provides, with a touch of humor, a series of real-world scenarios for students to peruse while studying the related topics in the text. 

In addition to being a member of the American Chemical Society and an officer of its Division of Pesticide Chemistry, John was also a member of the Chemical Society of London, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Federation of American Scientists, and was on the editorial staff of the Journal of Chemical Ecology, He was a gentleman in manner and in action. He had a keen analytical mind and an excellent sense of humor. He enjoyed outdoor sports, particularly sailing and skiing, at which he excelled, and he maintained a long and active interest in the Boy Scouts. John was also a loving husband and father. 

One of the first people to apply science to medicine was the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (ca. 460-377 b.c.e.). Influenced by the idea that the world is composed of four substances—earth, air, fire, and water—as taught by the Greek philosopher Empedocles (ca. 495-435 b.c.e.), Hippocrates proposed that four fluids are critical in determining a person s state of health. These fluids, known as humors (from a Latin term for moisture), were called blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. According to Hippocrates, an imbalance in these humors caused disease. Later, people associated a specific temperament or personality with these humors, a theory that was one of the earliest attempts to explain moods and emotions. Blood, for example, was associated with an optimistic disposition, while black bile corresponded to depression. 

When the University of Berlin was founded, Klaproth was sixty-seven years old, yet he was appointed as the first professor of chemistry, and served in that capacity until his death on January 1, 1817 (23). Thomas Thomson mentioned as his most characteristic personal traits pure love of science, intellectual integrity, unselfishness, modesty, friendliness, kindness, a sense of humor, religious feeling, freedom from superstition, neatness, and precision 14). 

I m not the only author to realize the immense challenge in publishing fiction. For example, John Scalzi (Scalzi.com) has written extensively on the difficulty of publishing science fiction. First let me tell you a little bit about John. He is a published nonfiction book author. He has written for the Chicago Sun-Times, the Washington Post, the San Diego Tribune and the San Francisco Examiner. He s even been on Oprah. John has been an editor, most notably for a humor area on America Online. He even has an agent—for his nonfiction. 

Finally, in spite of the somewhat greater corpulence of tlie second edition compared to the first, I have done my best to maintain the text s liveliness - at least to the extent that a scientific tome can be said to possess that quality. After all, to what end science without humor ... 

While the tradition in biomedical science has been to pigeon-hole cells or events into discrete systems, nowhere is the folly of this simplistic approach better illustrated than in the immune system where the vanguard must be connectedness. For example, dendritic cells are key players in innate and adaptive immune responses, humoral immunity involves both... 

So much so that, for example, I was able to appreciate some of the ingroup humor in an article I read in Science some years ago about quarks. Quarks Yes, quarks. To me, the article was obviously a put-on, about how physicists were hunting for particles no one had ever seen, called quarks. Much of the humor was too technical for me to understand, but I was pleased that a staid journal like Science could unbend enough to publish humor. Of course, it was not humor. Physicists are very serious about quarks, even though no one has ever detected one with certainty (at least not yet, despite an awful lot of research). Cback)... 

Feynman was already known for his sly and sophisticated sense of humor. The fact that he offered a 1,000 prize for each challenge-then a small fortune for a college professor, even one of Feynman s stature—only confirmed the belief that he regarded them as insurmountable. To his surprise, Feynman did have to pay one 1,000 prize less than a year later, when an inventor presented him with the miniature motor described in his speech. Despite this accomplishment, his vision of a revolutionary new approach to materials science did... 

If the meat of this book lies in archives and interviews and its brains lie in the history and sociology of science, this book s heart springs from my family s love and kindness. For these I thank Carol Sue and Don Frickel Shelby and Rocco Verretta Anne, Dave, Devin, and Justin Divecha Susan Lauffer and Jim, Rebeckah, and Hannah Fussell. Mostly, though, I thank Beth Fussell. For her patience, strength, critical eye, and humor I am deeply grateful, and I dedicate this effort to her. 

Fig. 13. Separation of art and science it is a source of humor to suggest that music can describe the experience of a chemist in a laboratory.

The life of George Gamow (pronounced Gam-off) reads like a mix of suspense fiction and fairy tale. Blond, six-foot-three-inches tall, with milk-bottle thick glasses, he combined brilliant thinking with clever jokes and a clear, humorous style of writing about science for the public. 

Cannabinoids are able to cause different effects at the level of various systems and/or organs the most important effects occur on the central nervous system and on the cardiovascular system. In fact, they are able to affect mood, memory, motor coordination and cognition, and they increase heart rate and variate the systemic arterial pressure. Furthermore, it is well known the capability of cannabinoids to reduce intraocular pressure and to affect the respiratory and endocrine systems (L. E. Hollister, Health Aspects of Cannabis, Pharmacological Reviews, 38,1-20,1986). More recently, it was found that they suppress the cellular and humoral immune response and have antiinflammatory properties (A. W. Wirth et al.. Antiinflammatory Properties of Cannabichromene, Life Science, 26,1991-1995,1980). 

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