Seriously, it kills me when I see people hold scientists up as pinnacles of logic and reason.
Because one time the professor I was interning for got punched in the face by another professor, because mine got the funding, and told the other professor his theory was stupid.
This same professor told me to throw rocks to scare the “stupid fucking crabs” into moving so we could count them properly.
SCIENCE
thank you
this is one of the best comments this post has recieved
I have witnessed:
Two professors hiding around a corner and snickering, “Shhh, here she comes!” While a female professor approached and, when she finally found them, she proceeded to scream while pointing from one to the other, “You! I called your office but you weren’t there! So I tried to call YOUR office to figure out where HE was but YOU weren’t there!”
Two grad students standing outside a closed and locked door yelling, “Come out of the damn office. You haven’t left for days. If you didn’t have a couch in there I’d be concerned as to where you were sleeping!”
A religious studies professor apologizing for being late to class because, “security stopped me because I’m dressed like a hobbit”
Watched a professor snort the results of my experiment to determine if I had the right final compound.
Two archeology professors toss priceless fossilized teeth back and forth in an attempt to figure out who is smarter by “guessing the type of tooth and species of animal before it lands”
Multiple fully degreed individuals throw dry ice at one another in an attempt to be first to use the lab/get that piece of equipment/or change the iPod song.
A genetics professor build furniture out of stacks of paper and planks of wood because she is that far behind in grading papers/responding. One of the impromptu furniture pieces housed a fish tank.
I could go on but I think that covers the larger portion of the insanity…
Every time it comes around on my dash, it gets better.
– I have had a professor buy a huge fuckoff bottle of rum during fieldwork in Costa Rica and let the undergrads get wasted because “you’re not underage in Costa Rica and we’ll be up all night with the bats anyway!”
– Same professor hung a bat from her headlamp and wore it as a decoration for an entire night.
– A whole swarm of older women – and these are women with PhDs and world-renown bat experts, the bigwigs – all, to a woman, go to the formal charity dinner at an international research symposium in Toronto in late October dressed in skimpy Batgirl costumes. Because Halloween was that weekend, you see.
– At a different conference, a professor get blackout drunk and pass out on the side of the road.
– “Yeah, we have to say we did it properly for the grant but to be really honest, Miracle-gro works better.”
– Teaching lab: we had liquid nitrogen for a demo, and after class the professor, the other TA, and I spent a good two hours freezing and breaking things in it.
a chemistry class begins with 30 students nine months later just six of us left sitting on tables dipping paper into contaminated chemicals to see what happens when we burn it teacher making idle suggestions while he marks our work
“go to the fume hood thing, yeah now put some potassium in chlorine” can i burn the results sir? “fuck it sure whatever its tainted anyway”
The prof I’m working for just asked me if I knew how to pick a lock, and when I responded “yes” she replied, “see, this is why I hire the former delinquents instead of the suck-ups. You’re actually useful.”
I then let her into her office.
“Security stopped me because I’m dressed like a hobbit.” I would bet anything this has happened to Dr. Medievalist.
Semi-related non-academic anecdote: The concert hall security guys tried to throw out our violone player in between performances this spring because they thought he was a homeless guy. Despite the fact that he was wearing concert black… and carrying a violone. There is no more obvious instrument.
One of my English Professors admitted that sometimes “you just have to do a soliloquy” and would phone up the main office of the department on the internal phoneline to recite a Shakespearean monologue at them. No greeting, no warning, just “To be or not to be”.
every time i read this stuff i think about how upset vulcans would be to meet earth’s greatest scientific minds
At one of the leading conferences for a certain branch of mathematics, there is an annual tradition of “walrus wrestling,” where the participants kneel on the floor with their hands behind their back and try to knock each other the fuck over. This takes place at the formal dinner.
Definitely a big reason I went into ecology was on my first undergraduate research outing watching my elderly herpetology professor get drunk, jump over a picnic table, and discuss wrestling alligators.
hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Weird Biology! today, I’m going to give you a fresh look at a really weird bird you may have heard of before. so get ready to learn some badass new facts about this scrappy little football!
so say hello to:
*HEAVY METAL SCREAMING*
all right, so there isn’t much badass about a hairy, nocturnal, flightless, island-dwelling bird a little bigger than a chicken. or so they’d like you to think.
Kiwis live in New Zealand, which is fitting because they’re the Hobbits of birds. (bear with me a minute and put down the torches, please)
I swear I’m going somewhere with this
like Hobbits, Kiwis live in burrows. also like Hobbits, Kiwis are short, stocky creatures; they grow to be about eighteen inches tall and 7 pounds. (this is just slightly larger than the average chicken and probably larger than you thought they were) like Hobbits, Kiwis are voracious omnivores and eat basically anything they can fit in that ridiculous beak. and finally as I’m sure you’ve noticed, Kiwis are prodigiously hairy. like Hobbits.
and finally, the Kiwi would absolutely carry a cursed item to the ends of the earth and throw down with a Ring Wraith. (but they’d do it out of spite)
spite is the only emotion the Kiwi can feel
see, Kiwis are aggressive, territorial, and extremely tenacious. they defend their territories and burrows against anything and everything, including humans and probably also marauding armies of orcs. which, since Kiwis have squat muscular legs and extremely sharp claws, is no joke.
it’s a lot less funny when you realize that they’re at least as fast as you are.
adding to their sheer tenacious badassery is the fact that Kiwis are even still around. I don’t know if you guys are super familiar with what usually happens to flightless island-dwelling birds when humans and non-native predators show up, but it’s not good. (HINT: starts with an E and rhymes with “distinction”)
hundreds of years ago, humans first arrived on New Zealand. and they brought dogs and rats with them. these predators have been taking huge tolls on the Kiwi population for a very long time, but Kiwis are fighty tenacious bastards and against all odds they’re still here. for comparison: the Kakapo (New Zealand’s other largish flightless bird) has faced the same problem with introduced predators and is now damn near extinct.
Kiwi resilience is in large part thanks to New Zealand’s conservation programs, but also Kiwis are just tough little bastards who don’t know when to quit.
but I’ve saved the most thrashtacularly metal feat of the Kiwi for last. Kiwis form bonded pairs for life (awww), and lay one to two eggs together per year. which, okay, does not sound like a lot. however, there is an important fact that needs to be brought into consideration:
yes, that’s a REAL FUCKING XRAY. HOOOOOLY SHIT.
the egg is fucking huge. like, up to 25% of the mom’s body weight huge. that’s completely fucking ridiculous and it’s upsetting to even think about.
but that big egg makes a big, well-developed chick who comes out of the shell ready to stab you in the shin and sprint into the bushes. they’re literally born ready to throw down and are basically mini-adults. but still adorable.
continuing the family tradition!
unfortunately despite their badass ways, Kiwis are currently still under threat from introduced predators. the good news is that Kiwis are loved, celebrated, and protected by New Zealanders. (who are justly and rightly invested in their national bird, shin-kicking quirks and all)
there are many conservation programs in place for the embattled Kiwi, and its weirdness is a light that won’t be going out anytime soon.
shine on, you little weirdos, shine on.
thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series here.
if you enjoy my work, maybe buy me a coffee so I can caffeinate myself into the 5th dimension.
This was a joy to read
😘
The ranger at the national park that my parents visited last year described the Kiwi as “We had the ecological need for bagders, but no mammals, so the birds evolutionarily squished themselves into a badger-shaped hole out of sheer rage.”
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