Double Entendre

The editors are asking us for the best pickup lines for scientists and science-savvy folks. How's about this: Hey baby, that's a nice cleavage furrow, how about we introgress? I promise, no incomplete penetrance.
To be filed under: "Every dude who's gone swimming in a cold pool in the Hamptons could have told you that." Polar bear genitals are shrinking: The icecap may not be the only thing shrinking in the Arctic. The genitals of polar bears in east Greenland are apparently dwindling in size due to industrial pollutants. Scientists report this shrinkage could, in the worst case scenario, endanger polar bears there and elsewhere by spoiling their love lives and causing their numbers to peter out. Is it possible that the shrinkage could be due to the fact that they live in the arctic? You know, where…
Is it possible to have a news item about college football, with people whose names remind you of musical legends, washed up rockers, and supporting actors in a Peter North movie? Could this be the perfect intersection of sports, pop culture, and dirty jokes? This story reads like a casting call for a John Holmes movie, not a preseason roster move by a college football coach. Houston Nutt (which is a funny name on its own), the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks, has named his starting quarterback for the first game of the season. He selected Robert Johnson (no one's sure if the Devil will…
After a short, and dirty, run, the evolgen Double Entendre Friday has shuffled off its mortal coil. I just can't keep it up week after week (double entendre not intended). Of course, if I do come across something particular distasteful with a dash of sexual innuendo I'll include it in the list of double entendres. But there is no way I could continue this as an every Friday tradition. As in network TV, whenever one series gets cancelled another steps in to take its place. At the old evolgen we had the Friday Random Ten. That was replaced by Double Entendre Fridays for the past month.…
This week's evolgen Double Entendre Friday is brief. It's also not my own idea, and I can't seem to remember where I stole it from (if I stole it from you, drop a note in the comments). Sorry. Here it is: Two glutamines bump into each other waiting to aminoacylate a tRNA. One says to the other, "I saw you hanging out near that ribosome with your last tRNA. Did you go all the way?" The other replies, "Well, my tRNA got me into the A site, but we were caught pretending to be a histidine. After that, there was no way the ribosome was going to let me get through her exit tunnel."…
Help! I need some more double entendres. Help! Not just any double entendres. Help! You know I need some biology double entendres. When I first proposed this wacky idea I figured I'd add funny biology terms to my list as the weeks went by. Well, I exhausted my original list quite rapidly, and now I'm scraping the dregs of funny terms to bring you something to make your Friday go by a little bit faster. This week I'm stealing from a list of molecules with silly names (via the recently expunged Frink Tank). Here's an awkward exchange that may have occurred between a student and her advisor:…
I'm running out of good biology related double entendres, and I want to wait a few more weeks before I post those that people suggested in the comments or that I stole from other blogs (don't worry, I'll give you mad props if I jones something off you). So, for this week's evolgen double entendre, I give you an essay that I came across in high school. To give some context, we were required to write a timed essay on the essay during class. I spent the first five to ten minutes (of the allotted fifty) trying to compose myself before I could even begin to think about what I would write. This…
Today marks the anniversary of the death of St. Patrick -- the dude who ridded Ireland of its non-existent snakes (some folks claim it was a metaphor for pagans). In honor of this great feat, people around the world drink green beer and pretend to be Irish. What does that have to do with double entendres? Absolutely nothing, but it's my excuse for the following lame joke: Two transcription factors are hanging out. One says to the other, "Did you end up scoring with that cis regulatory region you were macking on last night?" The other replies, "Yeah, I gave her the old zinc finger."
Today's evolgen Double Entendre Friday deals with the genetic phenomenon known as incomplete penetrance. Ok, maybe this one isn't a double entendre, but more of a pseudo-homonym (can you guess what it sounds like?). When students in an introductory biology course are taught about dominance they learn about recessive and dominant alleles and maybe some special cases (codominance, incomplete dominance, etc). Incomplete penetrance refers to the unpredictability of certain dominance relationships. Take, for example, two alleles of a single gene ('A' and 'a') in which A is dominant to a. We…
Today, I will begin a new tradition at evolgen. There are a lot of topics and terms in the biological sciences that sound like something else; many of these fall into the category of double entendre. I'm quite immature, so that kinda stuff really amuses me. Every Friday I'll try to come up with another double entendre for your enjoyment. Reader submissions would be greatly appreciated. For today's evolgen Double Entendre Friday, I give you the cleavage furrow. Yes, cleavage, as in these things. During mitosis, after all the genetic material is sorted out, the cell splits all of its…