These names might not mean much to you but they are all scientific heroes, and mostly Nobel prize winners, who I would like to introduce to you.
I have a feverish cold today so my brain is working in a strange way.
BIOLOGICAL CLERIHEWS
Linus Pauling
Fell into error most appalling
when Vitamin C he once extolled
to cure cancer and the cold.
James Watson and Frank Crick
made other researchers sick
when they unwound the helix, double,
and got knighted for their trouble.
The late Rosamund Franklin
never got any thanking
for deducing by X-ray
the structure of our DNA.
Dr Beadle and Dr Tatum
had a theory, verbatim
that "any single gene
can produce but one protein".
Kohler and Milstein
didn't patent their great find
that any antibody you wish
can be produced in Petri dish.
Sir Peter Medawar
was an immunological star
whose work on grafts of foreign tissue
made transplantation a live issue.
Sir Alexander Flem-
ing's penicillin was a gem
but Howard Florey and Ernst Chain
made all the financial gain.
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Brilliant
Written by Bottleblondesurfer (3590 comments posted) 23rd July 2008 |
I remember the great Tom Lehrer once put the periodic table to music and it made a really funny song. I think this was right up there with that. A great little piece with some wonderfully idiosyncratic rhyming; but if Lehrer can get away with "discovered" and "Harvard" You're OK with "Flem" and "Gem"
I actually recognised Crick and Watson, so I'm quite proud of myself.
If you know and musicians give them the lyrics. It's too good to waste.
jane |
Written by NathanRoberts (277 comments posted) 23rd July 2008 |
Hi Vron,
I do like the few clerihews I've encountered, they usually make me laugh, though I found these a little straight.
Educational though, and they might work well for students revising, and high brow pub quiz addicts.
I'd heard of Fleming, Watson and Crick, (and Pauling , vaguely,) but the rest were new to me. I suspect an introduction is as far as it's gonna get -I'm sure some very worthwhile things go on in petri dishes, but unless they've discovered a cure for diseased grammar and mixed metaphorism, I'll leave it to the labs. |
Written by Josie (2849 comments posted) 23rd July 2008 |
| Re Linus Pauling: He claimed that 75% of all cancers can be cured by vitamin C - but taking more vitamin C than you should can cause skin cancer. We all believe that it helps build up immunity to colds, but is this true? I think Echinacea is better. Better still is to keep away from trains and schools!! What do you recommend Veronica? |
Written by Veronica_Milvus (768 comments posted) 23rd July 2008 |
Josie: Echinacea seems to work very well if you have been around somebody with a cold or you feel the first symptoms. Unfortunately I didn't have any yesterday when I started to feel really terrible... so now I have a bad cold.
It was Pauling that made me think of writing the rest of these.
And Rob - no I couldn't make them funny! |
Fascinating!
Written by Katanga (1537 comments posted) 23rd July 2008 |
I can't claim to know any of these people, ignoramus that I am, but I think it's a great piece!
'Flem - . . . gem' is a neat one!
Get well soon, Vron!
Cheers!
John |
Written by Brett (1002 comments posted) 23rd July 2008 |
Well executed, V - so they are not hysterical - but pithy and truthful to the eponyms.
I really liked the fifth! But then I have always had a comical liking for 'petri dish.'
Cheers |
Written by Phil (7007 comments posted) 23rd July 2008 |
Not much to add - only that I enjoyed.
Cure for the common cold? - Work in a school. For the first year or two you suffer every sniff that's going - after that, you seem immune.
Phil |
Written by patterjack (1435 comments posted) 23rd July 2008 |
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Written by patterjack (1435 comments posted) 23rd July 2008 |
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Oe of those days
Written by patterjack (1435 comments posted) 23rd July 2008 |
...when the site is playing up on me it seems.
These are clever and in the spirit of the clerihew . Enjoyed them
patterjack |
Written by NathanRoberts (277 comments posted) 24th July 2008 |
REF: Phil's cure for the common cold, I think I'd rather get the sniffles. Does the immunity stay for very long? It just seems that when the kids go back to school after holidays they always pick up some virus or other in their first week.
As for too much vit c causing cancer...overdoing anything seems to cause cancer. Once, when I was living on a friends floor for six months, I survived almost entirely on oranges and cheese sarnies. I did faint at one point, but other than that, no major damage done as far as I can tell.
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