Dead People Scientists Won't Let Rest

An anonymous reader writes "Some historical figures are just too interesting to leave alone, even when they're supposed to be moldering in the grave. That's why medical researchers dug up Tycho Brahe, bombarded Napoleon's hair with neutrons in a nuclear reactor, and did everything they could think of to King Tut. Discover Magazine has 8 stories of delayed diagnoses and extreme postmortems."

Comments

Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[davidwr]

Anyone else get dyslexia over this one? What I thought I saw before doing a double-take:

Zombies invade university laboratories, scientists assaulted

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[Anonymous Coward]

Dead Scientists People Won't Let Rest is how it read for me the first time.

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[mlts]

I misread the article as "Scientists Love a Cold One".

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[KDEnut]

I read it as:

Scientists (that) Dead People Won't Let Rest.

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[URADingus2]

Yeah, I saw "Dead people won't let scientists rest." Took 3 readings to get it.

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[briansct]

Anyone else get dyslexia over this one? What I thought I saw before doing a double-take:

Zombies invade university laboratories, scientists assaulted

Hmmmmm....... So are the Scientists dead? I think I need to let rest me. Myself. No, let. Help!

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[Schemat1c]

Anyone else get dyslexia over this one? What I thought I saw before doing a double-take:

Zombies invade university laboratories, scientists assaulted

No. Only minds that have been infested with the vapid zombie meme see zombie' when 'dead people' is written.
Sorry, the only cure is a shotgun blast to the head.

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[Anonymous Coward]

Well whaddayuh know - the movies were right! Aim for the head!

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[toadlife]

Just imagine Yoda saying it and it will make perfect sense the first time.

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[damnfuct]

Once you have had scientist brain, you can't go back!

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[Anonymous Coward]

How about zombies invade Scientology laboratories, starve to death?

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean when "Dead People" and "Won't ... Rest" are put together? Nah, can't see why anyone other than fans of brain eating freaks would think Zombies.

Re:Scientists Dead People Won't Let Rest

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, Yoda would probably say "Let rest dead people, scientists won't"

Well,

[optymizer]

Some people have too much time on their hands.

Re:Well,

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Some people have too much time on their hands.

Perhaps, but stories like these make me fantasize about getting a government grant to explore my theory that Starfleet could totally wipe out the Empire.

Re:Well,

[Obfuscant]

A definition of /.

Re:Well,

[RazzleFrog]

Sometimes research is just done for the sake of research. It doesn't always have to have a productive result.

Re:Well,

[Samantha Wright]

It couldn't, though. The United Federation of Planets has only a few hundred member worlds; the only available figures for the Empire suggest it's at least in the "millions" category. The Empire inevitably must require a vast fleet to keep said vast territory within its grasp, internally; by contrast, Starfleet only needs to do border patrol on... not even all of its borders.

Re:Well,

[Chr0me]

If Ewoks could be an effective part of taking down the shield generators on the forest moon of Endor, imagine what Tribbles would have done.

As much as it pains me to say it, in a battle between two old guys in easy chairs on the command decks of their respective flagships, the UFP wins.

Re:Well,

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Starfleet shields are impervious to laser fire. But.... that's besides the point.

In the Star Wars universe you can drive from planet to planet without even needing a hyperdrive. Their idea of 'fast' is 1.5x the speed of light. Therefore they are likely inside of a miniaturized galaxy not unlike the one referred to in Hitchhiker's Guide where an entire battle fleet was swallowed by a dog. The entire resources of the Empire would be defeated by a small hand-phaser.

Re:Well,

[optymizer]

You guys have too much time on your hands.

Re:Well,

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Well, derr, that's a common trait of Slashdotters.

Quick question

[ddd0004]

In the picture, did that one guy wear a sweater that his mom made him?

Re:Quick question

[atrain728]

That guy looks as if he was born to wear his mom's sweaters. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. Clearly, the beard was grown to complete the look.

Re:Quick question

[Misanthrope]

Dude, that's the benefit of being a scientist. You get to wear Cosby sweaters or Hawaiian shirts and it's not only socially acceptable it's almost required.

Re:Quick question

[slackbheep]

And suspenders!

picture?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, what's the licensing on the picture? Attribution? Did you guys just swipe it from some place and put it up? For a bunch of people who get up in arms over licenses, it sure does seem like you don't care to pay attention to other people's.

Re:picture?

[Eudeyrn]

Good point.

Via http://humaniora.au.dk/en/events/tychobrahetomb/photosfromtheopeningofthetomb/

"These photos may be used by the press when credited. Photographer is Jacob C. Ravn, Aarhus University unless otherwise stated."

Who else thought of Penny Arcade?

[Pawnn]

I didn't know "Tycho Brahe" was a real person who is not Jerry Holkins.

Re:Who else thought of Penny Arcade?

[MonsterTrimble]

I knew Tycho Brahe was a real person, but Penny Arcade still jumped to the fore. I was thinking "Tycho is Dead? SHIT!" before I clued in.

Re:Who else thought of Penny Arcade?

[kalirion]

I thought Tycho Brahe in penny-arcade was a real person.

Re:Who else thought of Penny Arcade?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tycho Brahe 1.0 was badass.

Particularly so in his manner of death. That's an iron will for you.

Gauß

[Anonymous Coward]

Gauß' brain is still somewhere in the university of Göttingen while the rest of his body has been buried.

So what?

[SnarfQuest]

What good is there in spending millions of dollars to find out that Professor Plum killed King Tut in the library with the candlestick? What are you going to do about it? Arrest someone who dies thousands of years ago? Have the current Pharoh make a law banning candlesticks? The information might be somewhat interesting, but how much should we spend to find out? The library, the candlestick, Professor Plum (and his descendents) are probably all just dust in the wind by now.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well,

I think there is clear value in knowing the general course of history. Whether Tut was just a sickly person who died or if he was killed in coup might be helpful to our understanding of Anchient Egyptian society. Motzart though was know to have been old and ill, if there was suspicion of foul play or something there might be interesting implications but I can't see how it matters if it was a strep infection, or the flu that killed him matters. Did Lincoln have cancer? is another question that does not need answering. Its pretty well known that bullet is what ended is life. His having a condition which might have killed him years later is well not relevant.

Re:So what?

[hawkfish]

Mozart though was know to have been old and ill.

Ill, yes, but old? He was 35 when he died. Which led Tom Leherer to quip

It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.

Re:So what?

[shawb]

Exactly. I think ="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks">Henrietta Lacks is a better example. Basically, she had a tissue sample taken from a uterine tumor without her knowledge in 1951. The sample thrives in vitro, and has been used in many studies that pushed the envelope of science, from the testing of the Salk Vaccine to Aids research to, of course, cancer research as originally intended. In fact, the sample survives so well in vitro that it has contaminated many cell lines used in research. Her cell line is even used in college level intro biology classes for experiments/demonstrations in chromosome staining and other techniques simply because the cells divides so rapidly and it is so hard to accidentally kill the sample.

Re:So what?

[shawb]

Oops, biffed link. Should point Here

And don't forget Enstein's Brain....

[scharkalvin]

which was found in a shoebox in someone's closet.

Note to self...

[osu-neko]

If you don't want people messing with your corpse for centuries to come, get cremated.

What do you want on your tombstone?

[osu-neko]

I have to say, when they identified and reburied Copernicus, they gave him the coolest tombstone I've ever seen. Very nice...

Re:What do you want on your tombstone?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://oglaf.com/bliss/1/

Won't let rest?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe i am just cold hearted but i have a hard time see napoleon rise from his grave in anger or haunt the scientist from "other side" the grave just because his hair got bombarded in a nuclear reactor.

The whole ghost story part of vengeful spirits and poltergeists are just something a ignorant/scared/happy thinking part of the society raised us to believe in, heck not to far back we were raised with the belief that the ground we walk on was flat, the only "rest" dead people get is what people put in their own mind that the dead person think. Heck if this vengeful spirit thing were real i would have a farm of angry animals haunting me for all the beef/bird/fish i have been eating in my life.

Dead people are dead, end of story. There is no happy place or burning hell for your spirit to go. Heaven and hell is here on earth and its what we create for ourself.

Its a good thing the scientists have a go at those corpses, maybe they can learn something of use from em, if not to bad.

All respect to their memory, but a carcase is not a memory.

Henrietta Lacks cell line lives, since 1950's

[allwheat]

The first immortal cell line ever grown was that of Henrietta Lacks in 1951, who had cancer, and her cells are still living in many labs throughout the world--about 20 tons worth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks)! Scientists, literally, won't let her die.

Re:Henrietta Lacks cell line lives, since 1950's

[geekoid]

No, she is dead.
If I took a strand of your hairs and managed to keep it alive, and the blew your brains out, you would be dead.

Re:Henrietta Lacks cell line lives, since 1950's

[jbeaupre]

As dead as your sense of humor.

Re:Henrietta Lacks cell line lives, since 1950's

[shawb]

Ahh. You beat me to it. I thought I had scrolled down far enough. It's so annoying that the first few pages of topics not directly tech related are always "I misread that as..." Prevents real discussion.

Re:Henrietta Lacks cell line lives, since 1950's

[Anonymous Coward]

Even worse, lots of specific cell lines used for research are contaminated by HeLa cells—and contamination in this case usually means that it's a pure HeLa culture, since HeLa outgrows almost any other cell line.

Therefore, lots of published research draws plain false conclusions and is essentially worthless.

Re:Henrietta Lacks cell line lives, since 1950's

[BetterThanCaesar]

No, she's resting.

Re:Henrietta Lacks cell line lives, since 1950's

[Anonymous Coward]

Hair is already dead. All those shampoos that claim to nourish it - they don't.

Re:Henrietta Lacks cell line lives, since 1950's

[GameboyRMH]

I've seen car wax products that claim to nourish the paint :-(

Re:Henrietta Lacks cell line lives, since 1950's

[Drakkenmensch]

The first immortal cell line ever grown was that of Henrietta Lacks in 1951, who had cancer, and her cells are still living in many labs throughout the world--about 20 tons worth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks)! Scientists, literally, won't let her die.

They couldn't let her if they wanted. Her cell line has a strange mutation that completely bypasses cellular apoptosis. In simple terms, her cells are incapable of reaching a natural pre-programmed replication limit and die of old age!

Pervasiveness of Tests

[k6mfw]

There is this book called Testing Testing or something like that (in 1990s I heard of the book from someone who trains others to administer professional engineering license tests), it is not about taking tests but about society's pervasiveness of tests. There are tests for people before they are born, many tests in school years, driver's licenses, job related tests, and tests after people die.

An elementary school teacher calls "timed tests" (i.e. 10 minutes for students to complete a arithmetic exam) "drill and kill" tests.

creepiest dead person...

[Anne Honime]

... is definitely Jeremy Bentham, in my book (if you're not in the know, go straight to the "auto-icon" section of the article).

Stop generalising scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

Good lord people, I'm so tired of being grouped in with the "scientists" at large when it comes to stories like this. The general population (the generally more tech-savvy /. crowd notwithstanding) seems to think that anyone with a business card that says scientist somewhere on it is responsible for all the good and bad technological developments in the common news media. I am a molecular biologist with an engineering background, and I am so bloody tired of being assaulted on a daily basis because the BBC or the Guardian or the NYT or the Washington Post says "science says N; world is going to end. It's not how fucking science works. I'm sorry to rant to all of you (who presumably "get it") but there are so many scientific disciplines out there, we cannot all be grouped together. Is this story about MD Ph.Ds? Forensics specialists? Epigeneticists? Forensic chemists? Protein chemists? Archaeologists? My grad school adviser used to state that all a Ph.D means is that have a huge in-depth knowledge base concerning a tiny bit of any given subject- any decent scientist will know what I'm talking about. I work in an R&D group with 10-odd scientists, with degree levels ranging from B.S. with 2 years experience to Ph.D with 40 years experience (one of whom is literally a rock star of the mobio world) and we all have our specialties, and we rely on each other on a daily basis to complete our development goals. Please stop grouping all scientists in together; it does nothing but make the story submitter/editor look ignorant. /rant

Wow

[Cant use a slash wtf]

That scared me. I thought it was said "Dead people scientists". That turned out to be thankfully less eventful than I expected.