Since a bolt-cutting lock-breaking thief misappropriated my bicycle several weeks ago, I’ve been hoping that he (or she) would return it. Until then, I’m riding the bus. Time on the bus gives me the opportunity to eavesdrop and read – both activities provide ideas and inspiration for my writing.
Just the other night, when the bus was on diversion, which means that it takes nearly twice as long for me to get home, the upper level was quiet, with only a few of us heading home after a long day at work. I was paging through at the latest issue of Nature Methods and began to read a News and Views article about a recent advance for detecting epigenetic marks while determining the sequence of a piece of DNA. I could write an entire post on epigenetics – what it is and how important it is – or even what an important breakthrough this new technique (SMRT) is, but when I read about the latest progress in detecting methylated Adenosines and Guanines what stuck with me an obscure word – zeptoliter. This word conjured up all kinds of images, the most vivid was a space age zeppelin that delivers small squirts of liquid. A zeptoliter is actually 10-21 of a liter, a billionth of a trillionth of a liter, a very, very small volume that can be measured and delivered by a miracle of nanoscale engineering, a zeptoliter pipette.
The word zeptoliter got me to thinking about and searching for other interesting but obscure words. I’ve included several words with links to their dictionary/wiki page that I’m going to try to use in conversations over the next few weeks.
Oxyopia describes a condition of heightened visual acuity, which comes from increased sensitivity of the retina. It is a word with very old origins: Oxy, meaning sharp or acute, can be traced to ancient Greek, and Opia is a Greek suffix with Indo-european roots meaning sight or vision. If only the linesmen and referees in some of the recent world cup games were oxyopic.
Schizothemia has nothing to do with the craziness associated with schizophrenia and everything to do with being unable to sustain a thought or theme in an oral or written conversation. When you speak with someone who suffers from ADD or ADHD you may experience schizothemic conversations. Schizothemic stories are convoluted and lack focus; they are the evidence of a writer trying to cover too much. I might even be tempted to describe my scientific career as schizothemic as I’ve jumped from field to field: autoimmunity as an undergrad, glycobiology as an undergrad and pre-grad student, the cell and molecular biology of mitochondria dynamics and inheritance in yeast as a grad student, and finally cell and developmental biology study of eyes in zebrafish to examine how cells transition from proliferation to differentiation.
Arcology is a portmanteau word that combines architecture and ecology describing a futuristic form of building design that encloses enormous habitats that maximize human interactions, minimize the use of resources like energy and raw materials, and practice the principles of reduce, reuse, and recycle, sort of like a massive scale Eden project. Arcology developments are popular in science fiction, but there are real life examples too. Arcostani is a planned community in Arizona for 5,000 people designed by Paolo Soleri, the Italian architect who coined the term and popularized the concept of better urban living through arcology. Like other suburbs and planned communities, construction of Arcostani began in the early 1970s and is still on-going. Unlike those other developments, Arcostani is self-contained, relying on new technology and smart design principles to not sprawl into the surrounding open space.
Liked it – want more!