Charles Darwin's barnacle and David Bowie's spider: How scientific names celebrate heroes, adventurers and villains

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Ever since the XNUMXth century the binomial system of scientific names of Carl Linnaeus was adopted, scientists often assigned the names of those whom they wanted to glorify or discredit to species of animals and plants. In his spellbinding, engagingly written book, Stephen Hurd recounts the amazing, highly instructive, and sometimes scandalous stories that underpin taxonomic nomenclature, from Linnaeus himself naming a small, nasty weed as his scientific rival, to the latest fashionable trend to name species after pop idols. -culture, thanks to which David Bowie's spider, Frank Zappa's jellyfish and Beyoncé's fly appeared. Some of the scientists resolved their ideological differences by exchanging unpleasant names, while others gave flowers or beautiful jellyfish the names of their secret lovers. Thanks to these names, we preserve the memory of little-known ascetic scientists, travelers and simply brave people, without whom many discoveries in biology would not have been possible. Scientific names can tell us a lot about both those to whom they are dedicated and about their authors - their worldview, passions and weaknesses.

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Barcode: 9785916719925 SKU: 70150679 Category:
Publication language: Russian

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