Naming Names
What's In a Name?
Guest: Stephen B. Heard, Professor, Biology, University of New Brunswick, and author, “Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’s Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels”
From Spongiforma Squarepantsii to Heteropoda davidbowie, scientists sometimes have a bit of fun naming the creatures they discover. But some researchers have tried to embarrass their rivals by incorporating insults into naming conventions. There's a story behind every name, and we'll get a few of the good ones.
Not All Fun and Names (But Quite a Bit More Than You'd Think)
Guest: Gareth Williams, Astronomer, Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and Secretary, International Astronomical Union’s Working Group for Small Body Nomenclature
Did you know that there’s a committee that gets together just to name things we discover in space? Asteroids like one named after David Bowie, another after Jimi Hendrix, and another named after a cat itself named after Mr. Spock. Just a few of the thousands of creatively named things in space.
Family Names
Guest: Sam Payne, host, "The Apple Seed," BYUradio
Sam Payne shares the stories behind many family names around the world and what they mean.