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The Fruit Fly Drosophila Gets a New Name
G3ckoG33k writes "The name of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster will change to Sophophora melangaster. The reason is that scientists have by now discovered some 2,000 species of the genus and it is becoming unmanageably large. Unfortunately, the 'type species' (the reference point of the genus), Drosophila funebris, is rather unrelated to the D. melanogaster, and ends up in a distant part of the relationship tree. However, geneticists have, according to Google Scholar, more than 300,000 scientific articles describing innumerable aspects of the species, and will have to learn the new name as well as remember the old. As expected, the name change has created an emotional (and practical) stir all over media. While name changes are frequent in science, as they describe new knowledge about relationships between species, these changes rarely hit economically relevant species, and when they do, people get upset."
Is it only in software we care about backwards compatiblity? This new name change will break thousands of studies which now references a fly does not exist. Journalists with only a fleeting aquantaince to biology will be confused about Drosophila melanogaster and its new name which leads to worse science reporting. This seems like gratitious breakage, where if an analysis was made the costs would be found much higher than the benefits.
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"It was very difficult for the commissioners," says Ellinor Michel, the commission's executive secretary. "It was a question of celebrity, as everyone knows D. melanogaster."
That would certainly be awkward...if we lose Drosophila melanogaster, the only full binomial I will know from memory will be Homo sapiens. I'll have to memorize the name Caenorhabditis (of C. elegans fame) or something, and that will truly be a tragedy.
Sophophora was Drosophila
Now it's Sophophora, not Drosophila
Not been a long time gone, Drosophila
Now it's bug filled time on a moonlit night
Every fly that was Drosophila
Lives in Sophophora, not Drosophila
So if you had a fly in Drosophila
It'll be waiting in Sophophora
Even old pluto, was once a planet
Why they changed it I can't say
People didn't like it better that way
So take me back to Drosophila
No, you can't go back to Drosophila
Been a long time gone, Drosophila
Why did Drosophila get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Scientists
Sophophora (Sophophora)
Sophophora (Sophophora)
Even old pluto, was once a planet
Why they changed it I can't say
People didn't like it better that way
Sophophora was Drosophila
Now it's Sophophora, not Drosophila
Not been a long time gone, Drosophila
Why did Drosophila get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Scientists
So take me back to Drosophila
No, you can't go back to Drosophila
Been a long time gone, Drosophila
Why did Drosophila get the works?
That's nobody's business but the scientists
Sophophora
(with apologies to They Might Be Giants)
---
Ryan Fenton
At least the popular name is staying the same. I'd hate it if they ruined my favorite entomological pun: "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Good point. And since Jupiter's mass ratio to the Sun is close to what Earth's is to Jupiter, I think we should just call Jupiter "a really crappy star."
Or maybe for classifying celestial objects it's not the size of the body, it's the motion of the fundamental forces ;)