Thursday, September 06, 2007

Madonna's Impact On Science

Hadn't J.H., a student at New Mexico Tech when I was there, or his brother, already discovered several species of cactus by the time he was eighteen? I guess it's not that hard, if you know what you are looking at.

In any event, this was a nice gesture:
In 2006 a new water bear species (Latin: Tardigrada), Echiniscus madonnae Michalczyk & Kaczmarek, 2006[102] was named after Madonna. It is the first and the only (so far) species named in honour of the artist. The paper with the description of E. madonnae was published in the international journal of animal taxonomy Zootaxa in March 2006 (Vol. 1154, pages: 1-36). The authors' justification for the name of the new species was: "We take great pleasure in dedicating this species to one of the most significant artists of our times, Madonna Louise Veronica Ritchie". The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) number of the species is 711164.

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