# Punny / Funny Science Paper Titles
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [October 8, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947 "2022-10-08T15:57:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/1 "2022-10-08T15:57:29Z")
I’ve just finished reading an article on languages that share the rare feature of having the same words acting both as interrogative and relative pronouns. This is the case in most European languages (e.g. **Who** is speaking ? / The girl **who** is speaking) as well as in some native American languages (likely due to contact with the former) but nowhere else, it seems.
It was written by **Marianne Mithun** who’s one of the foremost authorities on native North American languages, especially the Iroquoian family. So, some bona fide research there, and given the author and the topic, I was going to read it anyway. But what definitely won me over was the title :
_Questionable Relatives_
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2022, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/2 "2022-10-08T16:01:18Z")
One of the key works on the Big Bang was written by cosmologists George Gamow and Ralph Alpher, who then got particle physicist Hans Bethe to sign off as a co-author as well, just so they could have an author list of “Alpha Beta Gamma”.
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2022, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/3 "2022-10-08T16:11:57Z")
There’s also Asimov’s classic, [the endochronic properties of resublimated thiotimoline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline) and its follow-ups
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2022, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/4 "2022-10-08T16:23:06Z")
Of course, that was a work of fiction, not a real paper (though his PhD committee did ask him about it during his defense). And the real joke there was that, here he has this miraculous substance, and the best use he can find for it is using it to measure the solute concentration of saltwater.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2022, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/5 "2022-10-08T16:38:46Z")
I liked “Kinetics of Inactivation of Glassware”.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2022, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/6 "2022-10-08T16:50:57Z")
As for “real papers”, there are plenty of classics where the authors thought they were being cute, like
> **[Nice snake, shame about the legs - PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11114437/)**
>
> Snakes are one of the most extraordinary groups of terrestrial vertebrates, with numerous specializations distinguishing them from other squamates (lizards and their allies). Their musculoskeletal system allows creeping, burrowing, swimming and even...
> **[Escape from the menace of the giant wormholes](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1989PhLB..221..242C/abstract)**
>
> We suggest a mechanism for avoiding the Fischler-Kaplunovsky-Susskind catastrophe. We explore the detailed consequences of our mechanism in model which, although drastically simplified in some repects, contains what we believe to be the essential...
> **[Some like it hot: Intra-Population Variation in behavioral Thermoregulation...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1011024320725)**
>
> Ectothermic animals rely on external heat sources and behavioral thermoregulation to control body temperature, and are characterized by possessing physiological and behavioural traits which are temperature dependent. It has therefore been suggested...
and of course the master list
> **[If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and...](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.18.484880v2)**
>
> Titles of scientific papers pay a key role in their discovery, and “good” titles engage and recruit readers. A particularly interesting aspect of title construction is the use of humour, but little is known about whether funny titles boost or limit...
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2022, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/7 "2022-10-08T19:33:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> One of the key works on the Big Bang was written by cosmologists George Gamow and Ralph Alpher, who then got particle physicist Hans Bethe to sign off as a co-author as well, just so they could have an author list of “Alpha Beta Gamma”.
In imitation of this, Optical Scientist Wayne Knox got his father, chemistry professor Robert S. Knox, along with physicists J.F. Hoose and R.N. Zare to publish this April Fool’s day paper in **Optics and Photonics News**
Knox, W. H., R. S. Knox, J. F. Hoose, and R. N. Zare. “Observation of the 0-fs pulse.” _Optics and Photonics News_ 1, no. 4 (1990): 44-45.
It’s the “Knox Knox Hoose Zare” paper.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2022, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/8 "2022-10-09T01:22:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> One of the key works on the Big Bang was written by cosmologists George Gamow and Ralph Alpher, who then got particle physicist Hans Bethe to sign off as a co-author as well, just so they could have an author list of “Alpha Beta Gamma”.
Alpher was always pissed about that.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2022, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/9 "2022-10-09T13:35:13Z")
AC/DC has figured in at least two research studies, one of which found that a song of theirs could be used [to improve cancer drug delivery](https://www.nme.com/news/music/acdc-2-5-1197243):
“Thunderstruck: Plasma-Polymer-Coated Porous Silicon Microparticles As a Controlled Drug Delivery System”
Sadly, not all AC/DC songs have proven beneficial.
[“Testing the AC/DC hypothesis: Rock and roll is noise pollution and weakens a trophic cascade”](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.4273)
“When exposed to music by AC/DC, who articulated the null hypothesis that “rock and roll ain’t noise pollution” in a song of the same name, lady beetles were less effective predators, resulting in higher aphid density and reduced final plant biomass relative to control (no music) treatments.”
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### Author:  [@Joeu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joeu)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2022, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/10 "2022-10-09T17:29:13Z")
A long-time favorite of mine is “Pressures Produced when Penguins Pooh–Calculations on Avian Defaecation”, from _Polar Biology_. ([https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225635587\_Pressures\_produced\_when\_penguins\_pooh\_-\_Calculations\_on\_avian\_defaecation](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225635587_Pressures_produced_when_penguins_pooh_-_Calculations_on_avian_defaecation))"
Not punning, but the alliteration is somewhat clever.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2022, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/11 "2022-10-09T17:35:29Z")
[If I fits I sits: A citizen science investigation into illusory contour susceptibility in domestic cats (_Felis silvestris catus_)](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159121001258)
(Abstract)
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2022, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/12 "2022-10-09T19:45:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Of course, that was a work of fiction, not a real paper (though his PhD committee did ask him about it during his defense). And the real joke there was that, here he has this miraculous substance, and the best use he can find for it is using it to measure the solute concentration of saltwater.
I worked in the testing of computer chips, and I wrote a column which posited that you could use thiotimoline to get the results of a test before you applied it.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2022, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/13 "2022-10-09T19:49:43Z")
I don’t recall any in my field, but when you are putting together sessions for a conference sometimes you are stuck with three unrelated papers that are stuck together in a session. If you don’t want to use that old warhorse Potpourri you can come up with something weird.
We had one with a paper on asynchronous logic, on burn-in, and on core testing, so we called the session “asynchronously burning cores.”
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2022, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/14 "2022-10-10T14:57:37Z")
I’ve come across a lot of scientific papers with punny titles, but the only one I can recall right now is
Looking into Chapman’s Homer: The Physics of udging a Fly Ball
Peter J. Brancazio
American Journal of Physics Volume 53 (number 9) pp. 849-855 (1985)
[https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1119/1.14350](https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1119/1.14350)
Fans of Poetry will immediately see the resemblance to John Keats’ _On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer_ (1816), praising an Elizabethan translation of the works of the Greek poet Homer. (And is almost a famous for confusing Hernando Cortez with Vasco Nunez de Balboa). Nyekulturny troglodytes can look it up on Wikipedia.
Actually, I myself wrote a journal areticle with a punny title. I still wonder how many people got it:
**The Scarecrow of Os: The Function of Antefixes, _Oscillae_, and Suspended Masks in the Roman Garden**
**Classical World 107** (3) 383-397 May 2014
“Os” literally means “bone”, but was also used to mean “skull” or “head”. “Oscilla”, meaning “little head” was the name given to small swinging masks used, I maintained, as scarecrow figures in orchards and gardens, hence the title. It’s also a reference to L. Frank Baum’s character of The Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz, and the title of the ninth book about Oz, **The Scarecrow of Oz** , published in 1915.
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### Author:  [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2022, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/15 "2022-10-10T15:52:22Z")
I have a paper in press currently that had a cutesy title that was a play on a Woody Allen movie. Reviewer 2 pointed out that were misquoting the line and after a back and forth the editor made us remove the whole thing for a boring title.
I’m still mildly pissed 🙂
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2022, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/16 "2022-10-10T16:53:13Z")
Can you share details?
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2022, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/17 "2022-10-11T14:06:02Z")
> [@mozchron](#):
>
> I have a paper in press currently that had a cutesy title that was a play on a Woody Allen movie. Reviewer 2 pointed out that were misquoting the line and after a back and forth the editor made us remove the whole thing for a boring title.
Reviewer 2 is always the evil one.
> **[Reviewer #2: from joke to reality](https://medium.com/@19033188/reviewer-2-from-joke-to-reality-90d5f6f3c96f)**
>
> There is a famous inside-joke in academic publishing about Reviewer 2. This generic name describes a reviewer who is grumpy and aggressive…
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### Author:  [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2022, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/18 "2022-10-11T18:35:26Z")
Not true sometimes its reviewer 3
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2022, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/19 "2022-11-13T00:35:53Z")
A paper titled ““Sand, Sun, Sea and Sex with Strangers, the “five S’s”. Characterizing “cruising” activity and its environmental impacts on a protected coastal dunefield” appearing in an environmental journal, was removed in 2021 after being criticized for bad science and for unfairly blaming gays and bisexuals for harming aeolian landforms.
> **[Effect of Sex-With-Strangers on Sand Dunes](https://improbable.com/2021/11/10/effect-of-sex-with-strangers-on-sand-dunes/)**
>
> A new study about erosion might attract more attention than most studies about erosion. It is: “Sand, Sun, Sea and Sex with Strangers, the “five S’s.” Characterizing “cruisi…
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2022, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punny-funny-science-paper-titles/972947/20 "2022-11-14T01:02:03Z")
There is a published paper with the title, “The point of the empty set”.