unobtainium

‘Unobtainium’ is a fictional term used to describe a material that’s super rare, expensive or impossible to get hold of. The term dates back to the 1950s, and is believed to have originated in the aerospace engineering community. Engineers used it as a joke to describe materials that had perfect properties but were impossible or impractical to get hold of with current technology – like something that’s lightweight but incredibly strong or resistant to damage. As you can probably guess, it’s derived from the word ‘unobtainable’.

‘Unobtainium’ turns up in science fiction a lot, although I’m not completely convinced that the writers/directors are always in on the joke. The most famous one is probably from CGI snooze-fest Avatar, where unobtainium is a highly valuable mineral mined on the moon Pandora. It also turns up in The Core, a terrible 2003 sci-fi starring Hilary Swank and international treasure Stanley Tucci (both of whom should know better, frankly). In that film it’s a material used to construct a drilling machine that can withstand the extreme conditions in the Earth’s core. Why do they need to build that? Well, because the Earth’s core has stopped rotating, causing chaos on the surface including people with pacemakers suddenly dropping dead, and lightning strikes causing Rome’s Colosseum to explode. Ah, okay then.

The Core has the dubious accolade of having got almost all of its science completely wrong. Here are just a couple of examples:

• if the Earth’s core did stop spinning, we’d have no protection from solar radiation and would all cook to death (which would have been a very short, and probably better, film)

• the movie’s scientists constantly refer to the Earth's ‘electromagnetic field’ when, in reality, the Earth has a magnetic field, which is quite different

• when our hastily assembled team of random heroes reach the centre of the Earth, they communicate with their commander using a radio. This would be completely impossible because the ground would block the signal

• when the drilly-ship thing is drilling through the Earth to the core, it’s going straight down. But the writers seemed to forget about gravity, as the people inside it still manage to walk back and forth between different parts of the ship, when they should in fact be climbing.

This is just the tip of the bad science iceberg – The Core’s science was so inaccurate that it led to the creation of The Science & Entertainment Exchange, a programme that connects entertainment industry workers with scientists and engineers to promote better science in movies and television. Wow.

(With thanks to my friend Abby for suggesting this as a word of the week.)

vaccine

‘Vaccine’s history begins in 1796 with Edward Jenner, a country doctor in Gloucestershire. Smallpox was a leading cause of death at the time, with a mortality rate of about 20% to 30%. Survivors were often left with severe scarring and sometimes blindness too. Jenner noticed a pattern among the local milkmaids. Lots of them caught cowpox, a mild disease that caused sores similar to smallpox but was far less dangerous. But they rarely caught the much deadlier smallpox. He decided to investigate why.

On 14 May 1796, Jenner took material from a cowpox sore on the hand of a local milkmaid (called Sarah Nelmes). He then made small incisions on the arm of an eight-year-old boy called James Phipps (whose parents must have been very trusting), and inserted the cowpox stuff. The boy developed a mild fever but recovered quickly.

A few weeks later, Jenner exposed James to smallpox to see if the cowpox had protected him (seriously, that poor child). Thankfully for everyone concerned, he didn’t develop smallpox, proving the theory that cowpox had made the boy immune to it.

Jenner performing his first vaccination on poor old James Phipps

The concept of deliberately introducing a bit of a disease (not the technical term) to bring about immunity wasn’t new. Called ‘variolation’, people had been doing it with smallpox for centuries (it was used in China as early as the 10th century). But it didn’t always work, and sometimes led to severe cases of the disease. Jenner’s innovation was much safer because it used cowpox, which was less dangerous than smallpox. That’s why it got a new name – ‘vaccine’ – which comes from the Latin word ‘vacca’, meaning ‘cow’ (we got there eventually).

Jenner’s method spread across Europe and eventually the world, laying the groundwork for modern immunology and the development of vaccines for many other diseases, including covid. In 1802, he got a grant from the British government to continue his research, which would eventually lead to the global eradication of smallpox by the World Health Organization in 1980. Well done, Edward.

If you’re wondering what happened to James, he died of smallpox a few years later. KIDDING. There’s not actually much known about his later life, although he did get a free house from Jenner. Which seems like the least he could do, frankly. Phipps died in 1853, making him 65. And in a nice twist, that cottage went on to house the Edward Jenner Museum between 1968 and 1982.

(I don’t want to be Debbie Downer, but in the interests of balance I should probably point out that Phipps wasn’t the first child to be experimented on, I mean, vaccinated against smallpox with cowpox. In 1791, a man called Peter Plett picked a pickled pepper, sorry, inoculated three children in Germany, and in 1774 a guy called Benjamin Jesty also did it on three of his family members (!). But Jenner was the first person to publish details of the vaccination, which is why he gets the credit.)

electricity

Electricity. Without it, we couldn’t run life-saving machinery or straighten our hair (among other things). But have you ever wondered why it’s called ‘electricity’? Don’t worry, I’ve asked ChatGPT so you don’t have to.

Like a lot of words of the week, ‘electricity’ has its roots in ancient Greek. It comes from the Greek word ‘ἤλεκτρον’ (AKA elektron), which means ‘amber’ after the yellow fossilised tree resin which caused Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill et al so many issues in Jurassic Park.

Why? Well, the ancient Greeks noticed that when they rubbed amber with fur, it attracted small objects like feathers or bits of straw. They attributed that to a mysterious force within the amber. In the 16th and 17th centuries, scientists began to study similar phenomena in other materials (like using glass rods to generate static electricity), and coined the term ‘electricity’ to describe it. That was based on Latinising that Greek word ‘elektron’, and adding the suffix ‘-ity’ which denotes a state or condition (other examples of that include ‘equality’, ‘flexibility’ and ‘simplicity’).

Over time, as our scientific understanding of electricity expanded, we started to use the term to cover the whole range of electrical phenomena, including electric currents, electromagnetic fields and electrical energy.

As I’m writing about electricity while in Ely, a region previously known for its eel population, I think I have to spend a little bit of time talking about electric eels. They can generate electric shocks of up to 600 volts to stun prey or scare off predators. They can also deliver multiple shocks in rapid succession to immobilise whatever it is they’re trying to eat or frighten. This is down to specialised organs made up of thousands of electrocytes, which are electrically excitable cells (I don’t know what that means, but I like the sound of it). These organs can generate both high-voltage electric discharges for defence, and low-voltage ones for navigating and communicating. They can also detect minute electric fields generated by the muscle contractions of nearby prey. Electric eels can grow to over 8 feet (2.5 meters) long (WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK) and weigh up to 44 pounds (20 kilos). Thankfully they’re native to the Amazon and Orinoco River basins in South America, so you’re unlikely to run into one if you decide to take a dip in the Great Ouse.

Gratuitous Jeff-Goldblum-with-his-shirt-off scene from Jurassic Park. You're welcome.

anodyne

Someone said this to me on the phone the other day, and I realised I didn’t know what it meant (look, I don’t know ALL the words, guys). If you already know what it means, well done you. If not, we mainly use anodyne as an adjective (AKA a describing word) to refer to something that’s unlikely to offend or cause discomfort. So basically something that’s a bit meh. We also use anodyne as a noun (person, place or thing) for a medicine or substance that relieves pain.

Anodyne has been around in English since the 16th century. We nicked it from the Latin word ‘anodynos’ which is itself derived from the Greek word ‘anōdunos’. Both of these mean ‘painless’ or ‘free from pain’. So that’s where the literal meaning for painkiller comes from. And over time ‘anodyne’ has evolved a more figurative meaning for something that’s very middle of the road and doesn’t cause any upset.

A painkiller that certainly isn’t anodyne is general anaesthetic, which knocks you out for operations or if you’re trying to get BA Baracus on a plane*. But did you know that, even though we’ve been using them for hundreds of years, no one actually knows how general anaesthetics work? Scientists have worked out that they put you to sleep by reducing communication between your brain cells, but that’s pretty much all they know. That’s not at all scary. And my apologies if you have any kind of procedure coming up and didn’t know that.

*Dated reference.

torpedo

I’m sure you know what a torpedo is – an underwater weapon with an explosive warhead that propels itself towards a target, often accompanied by Harrison Ford and some dramatic music in the background. But do you know why a torpedo is called a torpedo? Well, it comes from a Latin word, ‘torpere’, which means ‘to be stiff’ (behave) or ‘to be numb’.

I’m now going to take you on a mini tour of Europe. Ready?

In the 16th century, the Italians called an electric ray (the fish kind) a ‘torpedine’. This was based on the numbness bit of ‘torpere’ – because if you got electrocuted by the fish, you went numb. This word then moved to Spain (that fish obviously got about a bit), where it was changed to ‘torpedero’.

Robert Fulton – I would

Next we’re going to France, where the word ‘torpille’ appeared in the mid-19th century for a kind of explosive device used in naval warfare. This was probably because of the electric ray’s ability to immobilize underwater prey with electric shocks. This word was later borrowed into English as ‘torpedo’. An American inventor called Robert Fulton (1765–1815) popularised it as a term to describe explosive charges when he added them to the Nautilus, his submarine.

As well as building the world’s first ‘proper’ submarine, which he designed between 1793 and 1797, Fulton had a series of homosexual and polyamorous relationships during his life, including living with a couple in Paris for six years. He died from pneumonia after diving into an icy Hudson River to rescue a friend who’d fallen in. None of this is relevant to torpedoes, but I’ve included it because he sounds like a TOTAL LEGEND.

myrmecophilous

If you’re described as ‘myrmecophilous’, then you’re associated with, benefited by or fond of (hopefully not in a weird way) ants. It’s a scientific term that describes the positive relationships ants have with other species like butterflies, crickets, beetles and mites, all of which help them be good at staying alive (that’s the science). For example, butterflies belonging to the family Lycaenidae (which is almost 6,000 species worldwide), are myrmecophiles. In return for protection from predators, some caterpillars have developed dew patches, small button-like spots on their backs, that ooze a thick sugary fluid that the ants go nuts for, while others have a nectar gland that pumps out the same sweet goodness (sounds gross, I know). So the ants get their fix, and the caterpillars get bodyguards (even if they are all hopped up on sugar).

The word myrmecophilous has Greek roots. ‘Myrmec’ means ‘ant’, while the ‘phile’ ending comes from ‘philos’, which means to love. Like extremophile, galanthophile and lots of other nasty words we won’t mention here.

Okay, ant facts.

• There are over 12,000 ant species worldwide.

• The bullet ant is said to have the most painful sting in the world – it feels like being hit by a hammer. Just kidding, it feels like a bullet, obviously.

• A single ant can carry 50 times its own bodyweight. And they even work together to move stuff they can’t manage on their own.

• Ants can be found on every single continent except Antarctica, which is mental considering it’s the only continent that literally starts with ‘ant’.

• The biggest ants’ nest ever found is over 3,700 miles wide. Yep, you did read that right. Called the ‘Argentine Ant Supercolony’ (good name for a band), it goes from northern Italy through the south of France, and out to the western coast of Spain. Many ant experts think it’s actually much much bigger than this and stretches across the globe – that’s because Argentine ants from opposite sides of the world recognise each other (which I think basically means they don’t try to kill each other), leading them to think they all live in one utterly ginormous colony. Here’s hoping they don’t rise up and take over the world… actually maybe that would be better.

• I ate a stir-fry in a restaurant in Cambodia that had ants in it (as an ingredient – it wasn’t a really dirty restaurant) – although I didn’t realise until I was about halfway through. I thought they were saffron or something like that. It was very nice, but once I did realise, I couldn’t finish it.