Sticking my nose in

weren't you the clever little gamete?

I go to university on the site of Maurice Wilkins' birthplace. Little-known fact, that.

I guess having someone who could actually get down amongst it was handy, no?

Very cute. You could put in a word for Rosalind Franklin who actually did the X-ray crystalography (and died early due to radiation exposure; no radiation safety officer back then).

Good one. Subtle. I'll file that one with my pet snail who crawls in cursive. Happy April Fool's.

Hey, they want to nominate you for a Nobel Prize, I say take it and run!

I'm delighted that our Grand and Beloved Atheist Leader has been recognized, but the joke itself seems to me to be a bit in poor taste, given the controversy over Franklin's lack of recognition (and Watson being a right prick about that point).

PZ, you have clearly been too modest, keeping this quiet for all these years. Not even a hint.

What I would like to know is, what has happened in the intervening years that turned you in to the media hogging, master purveyor of the publicity stunt, and all-round blogstarr that we know (and love) today?

(Look, it is still not midday where you are. I am not in the UK, by the way, where it is five-past-three. That's the other guy)

ha! Wow, are you ever modest. Who know you were such a genius fetus.

On other April Fool's Day missives...

The BBC were running the story on their Breakfast News. It actually had me convinced for a second, then I woke up.

While there is legitimate controversy over the role of Franklin's data in finding a useful model of DNA, she would not have been included in the Nobel prize anyway, since it is not given posthumously. It is also not awarded prehumously, so I guess PZ is left out as well.

While there is legitimate controversy over the role of Franklin's data in finding a useful model of DNA, she would not have been included in the Nobel prize anyway, since it is not given posthumously.

While that is a true statement, I think it kind of puts the emphasis the wrong way 'round. That is, I understood that had she been alive, she would have been awarded the Nobel with Watson and Crick.

I understood that had she been alive, she would have been awarded the Nobel with Watson and Crick.

I bow to your superior chumminess with the Nobel prize committee. Those guys never return my calls.

Bah. The BBC story will only play in the UK. Bugger the UK copyright laws!

It is interesting to note that,when projected on the moon, PZ looks disturbingly like Ringo Starr.

I prophecy that someone in the next month will point to those images as evidence of fraud on the part of the scientific establishment whose intent is to attack god and replace him with the stochastic random processes that are systemic of the devil's work ;-)

Ben, you mean we're not trying to attack god?

I thought that was the whole point!

Carlie, it's not so much UK copyright laws but who pays the licence fee. I.e. us in the UK pay it, or at least are supposed to pay it if we have a TV, and thus the beeb has to give it to us, if anybody, for 'free'. After all, our money already paid for it once via that licence fee. However, they have no such obligation to the rest of the world, not forgetting that the rest of the world is a ready market for much of its programming and earns the beeb a fair slice of revenue. Though I have heard mention of BBC Worldwide possibly offering program material on an ad supported site in the future where it doesn't conflict with local copyright or program licencing issues.