Oh, my! Do you hear that? What is that music? It sounds like a tin banjo being played in a vat of whiskey. Why, sure it’s nothing but old Saint Patrick, strumming on his filthy harp. Is that a euphemism? Only time will tell, on this Irish Science Week!
Did you know …
That some Irish people literally “bleed green”? It’s true! I’ll be you thought that “bleeding green” was just a figure of speech for undeservedly proud drunks and seasonal novelty t-shirts, but it’s actually a very real part of having hemocyanin.
Where most people bleed red because of the iron in their hemoglobin, some animals, molluscs and arthropods in particular, use copper to transport oxygen in their blood, through “hemocyanin.” This copper-laden protein can give their blood a greenish tint (some might argue that it’s more blue than green, but let’s not split hairs.)
So how is it that the Irish, to some extent, have come to utilize hemocyanin in their blood? Hmm … well, how can I say this in a way that doesn’t come across as super racist? Ok, so, I am in fact part Irish, perhaps mostly Irish. And yet I have never had sex with a lobster. So we can say that not all people of Irish descent have sex with lobsters. And it’s also possible that some do, or have. And when a man and a lobster … get like that, anything might happen. Genetically speaking.
This, of course, is only a theory, and only believed by some scientists. And even if it contains any truth, we nonetheless can’t generalize and say that it is universally true for all the fair folk of the green isle. And, anyway, there’s no sense in being ashamed for something your great, great, great grandfather may or may not have done while lonely at sea.
And now some notable Irish people or people of Irish descent:
The Great Green List
Seamus Heaney
John F. Kennedy
Robert Kennedy
Brian Dennehy
Queen Elizabeth II
Crocodile Dundee
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