Science Slang, Jargon, and New Words from Double-Tongued Dictionary

Science, research, scientific disciplines. You can also see entries assigned to this category.

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auroral chorus n. The South Island of New Zealand and the Tierra del Fuego region of South America, plus the Antarctic Peninsula, are where the good displays of Aurora and auroral chorus can be seen and heard. [English Music Science] [full cite] (Apr. 24, 2006)

availability entrepreneur n. Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels. [English Science Jargon] [full cite] (Jan. 1, 2008)

bac n. Now, all the inspectors were really doing was assessing health risk, watching your bacteria (or “bac” as they call it), identifying environs in which it peaked and coaxing those food retailers to improve their outlets. [English Biology Health Science] [full cite] (Nov. 5, 2004)

bang-bang n. Oxford scientists have come a step closer to quantum ‘supercomputers’ by creating a new technique called ‘bang-bang’ to hold quantum information.…The qubit is repeatedly hit with a strong pulse of microwaves which reverses the way in which it interacts with the environment. [ Language English Register Jargon Subject Science] [full cite] (Jan. 10, 2006)

baraminology n. I see old earth creationism as starting with those who see the days of creation as long periods of time and thus phases of God’s creation. Such old earth creationists need to explain the boundaries past which they believe variation and natural selection cannot take changes (baraminology, in young earth parlance). [English Religion Science] [full cite] (May. 3, 2006)

barcode n. Several years ago researchers created probes consisting of nanoscale bars of metal actually etched with conventional bar codes. Since then, most molecular tagging devices have been referred to as “barcodes,” even though there are no bars involved. [English Science Technology] [full cite] (Jun. 14, 2005)

bean-bag genetics n. As Robert Brandon famously stated, genes are invisible to selection. Yet, population genetics assumes that the genes are visible to selection. How? Via phenotypes. But that is an oversimplified notion that a mutation in one gene predictably leads always to the same change in the phenotype. This one-gene one-trait view is sometimes called “bean-bag genetics.” [English Biology Science Slang] [full cite] (Jul. 10, 2007)

biobridge n. Snyder believes that the stem cells held in these “biobridge” scaffolds produce a positive effect by nurturing and sustaining the nerve cells in the recipient rodent. This is what he and other scientists refer to as the “chaperone effect.” [English Science Jargon] [full cite] (Feb. 24, 2006)

biodigital cloning n. Scientists have an idea of how teleportation would work for people. The person would first have to be destroyed—yes, destroyed. But it’s a good kind of “destroyed.” The teleporter would map the person’s body, genetic makeup, memories and so on. An exact copy of the person would then be reassembled at his or her destination. The process, called biodigital cloning, would kill a person and make a copy at the same time. [English Biology Science Jargon] [full cite] (Oct. 31, 2006)

biogenetic child adj. With egg donation, science has succeeded in, if not extending women’s fertility, at least making an end run around it, allowing older women who, for a variety of reasons (lack of money, lack of partner, lack of interest, lack of partner’s interest) didn’t have children in their biological prime—as well as younger women with dysfunctional ovaries—to carry and bear babies themselves. It has given rise to the mind-bending phrase “biogenetic child,” meaning a child who is both biologically and genetically related to each of its parents, by, for the first time in history, separating those components. [English Relationships Science] [full cite] (Jul. 15, 2007)

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