So I read that Barry Marshall, one of the Nobel Prize winners for medicine this year, tried to convince the community of the “bloody obvious” (his colleauge’s words …gotta love those Aussies) discovery that the bacterium Heliobacter pylori caused stomach ulcers by swallowing a vial of the bacterium.
From a BBC article:
Mr Marshall, whom his wife describes as having a “dreadful sense of humour”, eventually swallowed Heliobacter pylori, the bacterium they believed responsible for stomach ulcers, and became very ill.
Now, that’s all well and good. But I can’t help but think that in the Marvel universe, instead of getting the Nobel prize, he would have had to become a superhero or supervillain: Either Heliobacter Man, or Pylori (quite a bit more hip; probably drawn in Seinen manga style), or if he were younger, he’d be maybe Ulcer Boy….
-cvj
October 4th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
Now that’s a level of commitment few scientists would have the stomach for!
(Oh, I know it’s bad, but I just had to…)
BTW, swallowing pernicious microorganisms kinda reminds me of that sixties’ sci-fi movie, “The Flesh Eaters.” The mad scientist in that movie had someone unknowingly swallow a glass containing the flesh-eating bacteria to see what would happen.
October 4th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
Yes, it really took guts to do that!
October 4th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
I actually found the news hard to swallow at first.
-cvj
October 4th, 2005 at 3:33 pm
Was this a full blown article or just a digest?
October 4th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
I guess you are what you eat.
October 4th, 2005 at 4:48 pm
Ulcer Man w/ his intrepid wiser sidekick “Alfred” Warren… that is..
i noticed it was the young impestuous one who gobbled the brew.
October 4th, 2005 at 4:53 pm
But what’s his power, spyder?
-cvj
October 4th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
Maybe his power would be the ability to transform matter by consuming and digesting it. Not the way that all of us do — his digestive tract would have to be able to take dangerous substances and render them harmless. Of course, this would make him one of the slower superheroes, unless he ate a really high-fiber diet.
October 4th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
No, wait: he would also be able to spew stomach acid at his enemies!
October 4th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
Physics doesn’t provide much fodder for such dramatic self-experimentation, does it now?
October 4th, 2005 at 6:32 pm
I just told a friend who’s a medical illustrator about this discussion, and she said that the H. pylori is actually a very cute little bacterium — it looks like a paramecium with a party hat on. This suggests some costuming ideas for our hero. See, for example: http://www.cellsalive.com/helico.htm
I should say in explanation, or possibly in my defense, that I’ve been thinking all afternoon about gastroesophageal reflux disease in premature infants, so I may be a little obsessed with GI disorders. I’ve developed great respect for the lower esophageal sphincter.
October 4th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
Well, here is Newton, who stuck a knife behind his eyeball.
http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Exhibitions/Footprints_of_the_Lion/private_scholar.html
October 4th, 2005 at 8:33 pm
“Matter-eater Lad” from the planet Bismoll! (DC Comics, Legion of Super-Heroes)
October 4th, 2005 at 8:36 pm
Arun, a knife? I had always thought it was a spoon. A knife is just crazy.
But indeed, that’s what a bodkin is, apparently — although it may have been blunt.
October 4th, 2005 at 9:46 pm
Pyracantha! You know about Matter-eater Lad?! Wow! I had no idea that there were others out there who would recall DC’s (rather bizarre) Legion of Super-Heroes, never mind one of the “lesser” ones. In fact, my suggestion “Ulcer Boy” was to resonate with “Ultra Boy” in my mind, and I did notr trouble to explain it since I thought no-one would get it.
Janet: I really like the way our superhero (if that is what he is) is shaping up….
citrine: Oooooh, there are tons of imagined examples, some resulting in all sortsof outlandish things. And of course there’s the scientist in “The Fly”.
-cvj
October 4th, 2005 at 10:33 pm
I’ve always thought a bodkin was like a needle.
October 4th, 2005 at 11:28 pm
Janet: Thank you for providing some nice Halloween costume ideas!
October 5th, 2005 at 7:44 am
I would like the hero to be female instead; I cannot shake Pharyngulas description of flagellated bacterias ‘wiggly bottoms’ from my mind…
( http://pharyngula.org/ ; in a post describing an evolutionist prayer as a contrast to the creationist/fundamentalistic version.)
October 5th, 2005 at 8:26 am
If he was a scientist and became a villain, he’d have to be “Doctor Pylori” or “Doctor Ulcer.” For some reason, villains are more likely to be “Doctor” than heroes, even scientist heroes (”Mr. Fantastic?”) Maybe it’s the absence of the superior attitude required to become a villain.
Matter-eater Lad is a brilliant reference; I hadn’t thought of him. Of course, my knowledge of him is largely from the Legion of Substitute Heroes, rather than his original appearances.
</geek>
October 11th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
My husband pointed out that deliberately doing something to yourself that results in superpowers generally turns you into a supervillain. I’m not enough of a comics afficionado to evaluate this statement.
October 11th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
I think that in most cases, yes, he’s right. I think that is one of the main themes of a lot of the original characters, and the tradition was followed quite strictly. But there may be exceptions.
-cvj
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:32 pm
[…] Remember our occasional chats on this blog (e.g. here and here, in comments) about portrayals of scientists in the media? Here’s some more chatter on Pharyngula. […]
November 3rd, 2005 at 8:55 pm
[…] I then turned and walked away only to be facing my good friend, Los Angeles Theatre scence playwright and colleague from the School of Theatre, Oliver Mayer. I said the same opening sentence to him and again we completed the joke together. We sat, had more wine (it’s 4:30pm on a weekday, but you don’t install a new Provost everyday…..) and I told him about my standard bugbear about which you’ve heard so many times: Better representation of science, scientists, and the scientific process in the arts and media should be part of the battle of increasing the public’s awareness and appreciation of science and the crucial role it plays in society, etc…… I won’t repeat myself again (see e.g. here and here, in comments). He caught on immediately, and spoke of the fact that in all the the characters and scenarios he’s written about, he’s never explored scientists and science, as it is outside his realm of experience. So I then spoke of my general frustrations about this being the case not just for playwrights, but also for actors, filmmakers, jrounalists, etc. We spoke about speaking more (you know, “my people will call your people” -except neither of us are important enough to have “people” to call each other-) and we parted. […]