to feel irrational hatred everytime someone refers to a bacterium as a virus?

[WidowWadman]

Might be just the hormones, but it makes me want to scream.

Imagine pixie - when we convince them to tell us how to do that, we'll be millionaires

Thanks. You make me feel slightly normal again.

(I was driven to post by the outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli in Germany, and message boards going crazy about the "new virus" which of course is only an invention by the big farmer so they can push their avian flu vaccine. And I wish I had made that conspiracy theory up. I really do)

I know. Wish i could do it. Would have saved me hours of my life !

I get shivery when ever anyone refers to mushrooms and plants. Just wrong. Plain wrong.

Widowwadman - omg. Speechless.

Hoober - It means I don't have to say "I am a science geek", doesn't it?

I do shout at the TV, and films. And newspaper articles. CSI would be a bit dull if they did everything properly, I expect. And they wouldn't be able to swish their hair about, either.

May I please just call them germs?

YANBU - it annoys me on a regular basis, if not quite daily.

I was particularly impressed a few years back by a picture on the front of the Times of the newest MRSA bug, which was, in fact, a protein structure.

I mutter frequently about people failing to balance centrifuges on TV. Amongst other things.

Yanbu - I don't want to hijack this thread but people misusing osmossis drives me mental. It's made it into business speak and it makes me blow steam out of my ears. It's movement of WATER not your rubbish management tools! Arrgh! And breathe....
I think people are unaware of the size difference between bacterium and viruses and maybe that's it? Not an excuse though!

What annoys me more is my stupid phone plus my uncoordinated fingers... I meant osmosis

Me too me too me too!!! It's not only CSI either - I did a lot of shouting at the tv during the Horizon programme on gene therapy and haven't believed a word they have told me about anything else since.

I have also been known to state loudly whisper "that's not a monkey, it's an ape" to ds as we stand next to someone telling their dc to "look at the monkey!" at the zoo. And dh won't read the line in ds's dinosuar book that says "The pterodactyl swoops and soars above the other dinosaurs" - he omits the "other" bit.

Don't get me started on Dinosaurs Love Underpants, where the dinosaurs live shamelessly alongside the cavemen...

Yes, we are both scientists and pedants.

Big farmer? Shouldn't that be pharma?

Oh yes, unbalanced centrifuges. Way to drown out all the meaningful conversations they're busy having. They have terrible pipetting technique too...

Has everyone here seen The Core?

I would like to cross disciplines here, please, and add that AHISTORICAL DETAIL drives me sodding insane.

I shout TOMATOES AGAIN at the telly a lot. The Inferiorettes have taken to seeing how long it will take till I lose it over tomatoes. Also glazed windows in Merlin. (DP does also point out that a magical drama with a sodding great dragon in it takes more liberties with the truth BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT.)

And, returning to bacteria, obviously people who refer to a bacteria. Similarly with criteria.

I get annoyed a lot

I don't know the difference but then I don't even really get the difference between a bee and a wasp

I like to point out that data is plural no wonder everyone hates me

I know all about this, I do

only because have just completed ds's Laaaaiife Sciiiiiaaaence homework for him, innit

E.coli O157 virus - drives me mad or people who are scientists calling it E.coli zero 157, it's an O!!!!

The most unrealistic things about CSI, NCIS etc is that analyses are fast, the printer always works and they don't seem to spend forever trying to get the bloody equipment to not leak/jam. I've never been in a lab with a properly functioning printer!

Don't get me started on "chemical free" anything being advertised !

The printer hooked up to the gel doc in my lab is a parallel port printer, which occasionally chooses to print in green for no discernible reason. The computer doesn't support USB or CD/DVD. Possibly the only place in the world still using floppy discs!

Nope, we have to use them for our plate reader and, until recently, our HPLC. We have now got a wonderful shiny new computer for the HPLC, but sadly it is still hooked up to the instrument that, had Noah felt a compulsion to do any HPLC analysis, would surely have been his choice for the Ark.

Oh, yes. I agree with everything here. Though, to be fair on the ignorant majority, it's the "media" that's mostly to blame. All that opportunity to educate, yet it doesn't happen because there are so few science journalists who understand science. It's a lot like weather forecasting on the telly, done mostly by non-meteorologists, and even the few qualified people who haven't been booted off because they're not sexy enough don't have enough time and aren't allowed to use "complicated" terms.

And then there's the dihydrogen monoxide scare...

YABU. But you seem like the sort of person who might be able to help me with the diference between infectious and contagious?