What Are The Organic Chemists Doing?

The ultimate scientific flex! Marie Curie casually asking "Is two a lot?" knowing full well she's the only person in history to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields (Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911). While two dollars might not impress anyone, two Nobel Prizes makes even the most accomplished scientists do a double-take. She discovered radioactivity, two elements, and somehow found time to shatter glass ceilings in academia when women weren't even allowed to vote. Talk about putting the "rad" in radioactive research!

Just sitting here with the crushing realization that avocados have nothing to do with 6.022×10²³. Amedeo Avogadro never even met a guacamole in his life. The constant represents the number of particles in one mole of a substance, but try explaining that to your non-chemistry friends at brunch. They're over there ordering avocado toast while you're mentally calculating how many moles of coffee you need to survive this conversation.

The stark reality of scientific discovery laid bare! Chemistry gets you a shiny trophy and academic glory for mixing some colorful liquids in a clean lab. Meanwhile, biology researchers are out there in hazmat suits, armed and terrified, discovering new species that probably want to eat their faces or infect them with something that'll make their eyeballs fall out. Nothing says "I've advanced science" quite like needing a gun and a gas mask to collect your samples. And they wonder why chemistry departments get better funding...

Behold the molecular monster that is Titin! Scientists weren't satisfied with normal protein names, so they created one that doubles as a verbal endurance test. That massive wall of text at the bottom? That's Titin's ACTUAL chemical name with 189,819 letters. Biochemists clearly have too much free time and a weird sense of humor. The meme brilliantly suggests treating toxic relationships like a game of Hangman - delete a letter from their name each time they mess up. When the name's gone, so is the relationship. With Titin, you'd have nearly 190,000 chances before calling it quits. Talk about patience! Fun fact: If you tried to pronounce Titin's full name without breaks, you'd die of dehydration before finishing. Now that's what I call a toxic relationship!

This meme perfectly captures the bizarre interdisciplinary politics of Nobel Prizes! In the top panel, giving a chemistry prize to a biologist is deemed "appropriate" because the fields have significant overlap (biochemistry is huge). The receptionist's sweet response shows how normalized this boundary-crossing has become. But award a physics prize to a computer scientist? EMERGENCY! The bottom panel's "inappropriate" label and frantic HR call reveal academia's hidden hierarchies. This happens more than you'd think - computational physics and quantum computing blur these lines constantly, yet the old guard clutches their pearls. The secret joke: these territorial disputes matter way more to academics than to actual scientific progress. Meanwhile, the rest of us are just waiting for someone to cure cancer or build a fusion reactor!

Every biologist knows the existential truth: no matter what the problem is, Phosphate Buffered Saline (PBS) will somehow fix it. Left side: regular water. Right side: PBS, labeled "the cooler water." It's basically lab water with benefits — maintaining pH and osmotic balance while we frantically try to keep our cells alive. Grad students survive on coffee, cells survive on PBS. Coincidence? I think not. The ultimate lab flex is casually saying "just add PBS" to every protocol question without elaborating further.