Yeasty Humor
Who says that mycologists don't have a sense of humor? Well, maybe somebody does. I don't actually know. People don't talk about mycologists all that much if they aren't mycologists themselves. Just in case anyone does say so, though, here's contrary evidence.
I was just now reading Chitin and Chitinases and ran across the following sentence:
During conjugation, haploid [S. cerevisiae] cells of complementary mating types form projections (shmoos) toward each other under the stimulus of the corresponding sexual pheremone.Now, there's a term I'd never heard before, probably because I don't "do" yeasts. It's a funny word in such a scientific context, I thought, so I decided to look it up and see where it came from.
It turns out that "shmoo" is a reference to a comic strip character from Li'l Abner. The shape of a conjugating yeast cell resembles one of these comical critters, hence the application.
Here are some conjugating yeast cells:
And here are some comic strip shmoos:
They do look a lot alike. And ain't it cute... both the yeast shmoos and the ink shmoos are in "love." Awwwww.
