Honestly, I think the post title pretty much covers the entirety of this story, but here’s how it all came about for those who just need to know how we got here. (from The Scientist via Wired)
Step #1. Some Australian graduate student at the University of Melbourne named Anna McCallum discovers a new type of shrimp.
Step #2. She puts the naming rights for the shrimp up on eBay and plans for the proceeds to go to the Australian Marine Conservation Society, a fundraising strategy that has become a fairly common in scientific circles.
Step #3. Former Bulls center and three-time NBA champion Luc Longley, who is apparently into the whole marine conservation thing, wins the rights with his $2,900 bid and named the shrimp Lebbeus clarehanna after his daughter Clare Hanna Longley.
Got it, mate?
Some more about and from Luc:
Longley [is] no stranger to supporting marine conservation in his native country, having helped halt the construction of a resort near the Ningaloo Reef, a vast coral ecosystem off the west coast of Australia. “That gave me a taste for it,” Longley says. Coincidentally, Longley is from the Western Australia city of Freemantle, which is not far from where McCallum found the shrimp.
Longley says that he was as excited to name the new shrimp species as he was to help the AMCS protect the marine environment. “You get to name a species and you get to donate to charity at the same time,” he says. “It’s a fabulous concept.” He named the shrimp Lebbeus clarehanna, as a birthday present to his eldest daughter, Clare Hanna Longley, who turned 15 this August.
Good for Luc. Nice to see that at least one guy from those Bulls teams is outspoken about something a little more socially ambitious than selling sneakers to Republicans.
Still, my favorite part of the story resides in a quote from the woman who found the shrimp.
“It was a total surprise that a basketballer would be interested in this little deep-sea shrimp,” McCallum recalls.
I just like the fact that she uses the term “basketballer.”
Silly non-Americans being all … non-American.
[insert hilarious shrimp on the barbie joke here]
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Wow. I hadn’t heard Longley’s name in a couple of years. Didn’t think anything like THIS would bring him back to relevance. Weird. Very weird.