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Tiny Tentacled Microorganisms Named After Cthulu

Posted by samzenpus on from the on-his-slide-dead-cthulhu-waits-dreaming dept.

First time accepted submitter mebates writes "Two newly discovered protists, found in the guts of termites, were named after monstrous cosmic entities featured in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos as an ode to the sometimes strange and fascinating world of the microbe. From the article: 'The single-cell protists, Cthulhu macrofasciculumque and Cthylla microfasciculumque, help termites digest wood. The researchers decided to name them after monstrous cosmic entities featured in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos as an ode to the sometimes strange and fascinating world of the microbe. 'When we first saw them under the microscope they had this unique motion, it looked almost like an octopus swimming,' says UBC researcher Erick James, lead author of the paper describing the new protists, published in the online journal PLoS ONE.'"

10 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtaghn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Great Old Ones shall not be mocked!

    1. Re:Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtaghn! by EvilIdler · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's whenever new music no longer makes sense to you.

    2. Re:Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtaghn! by hawkinspeter · · Score: 4, Funny

      Jeremy Clarkson?

      --
      You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
  2. The Old Ones... by Genda · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Will drive you mad... look at how many times the phrase "featured in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos as an ode to the sometimes strange and fascinating world of the microbe." is used in the story??? MAD?!!!!

    Indeed, the Great Old Ones shall not be mocked! Anyone got some tartar sauce?

  3. Not your father's delicate psyche by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've often wondered if people of the modern age would be as affected by an encounter with these creatures as the people of grandfather's time.

    Raised on decades of science fiction, horror, twilight zone and outer limits, such an encounter would be grave and dangerous, but perhaps not quite as sanity-altering as it once was. We have context for comparison, the unusual would seem less... incomprehensible.

    We're also starting to unravel the scientific basis of these unfathomable entities. I'll just leave this here.

    1. Re:Not your father's delicate psyche by Giant+Electronic+Bra · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I dunno about that. Have you ever encountered something truly CREEPY? I'm not a real high strung person, but I can tell you that for sure you it is pretty surprising how disturbed you can become in the right (wrong) circumstances. I'm skeptical we're any better at handling these things than reasonably educated and experienced people of the past. It may be true that more members of today's society are more used to being exposed to new things, but I think you'd find that most people are still kinda not that far from what they were like 100 years ago.

      --
      "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
    2. Re:Not your father's delicate psyche by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Raised on decades of science fiction, horror, twilight zone and outer limits, such an encounter would be grave and dangerous, but perhaps not quite as sanity-altering as it once was.

      The people of our grandfathers time, and beyond, were raised on a steady diet of some fairly creepy and horrifying ghost and creature stories... there's much more to the old world than Han Christian Andersen. At any rate, encountering something creepy in real life is *very* different from 'encountering' it on the big or little screen or between the pages of a book.

    3. Re:Not your father's delicate psyche by AnotherAnonymousUser · · Score: 4, Informative

      Of course, you can add a whole new layer of horror even to your iPad these days, it seems.

      https://www.etsy.com/listing/119115231/necronomicon-ipad-ereader-cover?

    4. Re:Not your father's delicate psyche by bentcd · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've often wondered if people of the modern age would be as affected by an encounter with these creatures as the people of grandfather's time.

      The underlying theme in the Lovecraft universe is that the Elder Gods not only seem incomprehensible but that they actually are incomprehensible. The more you study them and their nature, the more your own internal ordering of the universe will break down and in the end your understanding of the universe is so different from the observed universe the rest of us experience we will recognize you as insane.

      You cannot escape this simply by being used to weird things: The Elders Gods aren't just weird, they are completely wrong and yet they exist. Trying to reconcile this with the observed universe leads to madness because the two cannot be reconciled.

      --
      sigs are hazardous to your health
  4. Re:Nuts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't be so self-centred. Not everything is about you.