Do you remember '90s cult classic Jawbreaker? Of course, you do. You remember Fern and how she went from the girl no one noticed to the height of popularity — all because of a makeover and a quick name change? Well, this may have just happened in real life. Or, at least in real plant life.
Duke University biologist Kathleen Pryer is naming a new genus of ferns after Lady Gaga, thus transforming this little-known Costa Rican shrub into the biggest plant name of 2012, or maybe ever. Surprisingly, it wasn't Gaga's 2010 Grammy outfit that got Pryer thinking.
The fern's DNA sequence is GAGA, but Pryer actually chose Lady Gaga as the namesake because she is a "champion for equality and compassion, and we wanted to give her a scientific namesake that characterizes the struggle we have in biology for understanding diversity in humanity, in all of biology, and even in ferns." And now, Gaga Germanotta is high school plant royalty. We can kind of maybe get used to that logic. The ferns were, after all, born that way. (Gothamist)
Photo: Via Gothamist
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