Friday, September 4, 2009

Scientific words

Once you get involved with biology you will discover a whole new language. With species, sub-species and genre all derived from mostly ancient Latin words. There will be occasional new word that the scientists will come up with for new discoveries.

Just the other day I cam across a word that I had not heard before - apidexin- and had deduced it was some form of new sugar. That was not it. It was another new pill. I now realize that new names for medications are thought up by marketing and not the research team. Can you imagine what would have happened to the names of some of fish in the sea if marketing had gotten a hold of them first? I don't think that TUNA would have been named TUNA. Tuna to me sounds more like the tin it comes in.

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