Monday, September 24, 2007

Sometimes, I don't do it on purpose.

I teach biology. I was talking about polydactyly (extra digits) in cats today as an example of genetic drift (I know, blah blah blah). Anyway, the point was that for random reasons, a male tomcat with extra toes sired a large number of offspring in Boston in the patriot days.





Thus, Boston has a disproportionately large number of polydactylous cats.





I pointed out that the success of the original male was just a chance process. There is nothing inherently cool about males with big feet.





Then, I said, it wasn't the big feet that made him sexy.





My college students started to chortle.





It beats hell over last year when I inadvertantly refered to a jellyfish's testicles...


(uh, I mean, uh... tentacles).

I think that I have been studying reproductive biology for too long. Well, if they don't learn anything... at least they are entertained.

1 comment:

richgold said...

Edutainment is good. It's teachers like you that kept me interested in classes. I listened harder just to listen for those slips. ;-)