Scientists sneak Bob Dylan lyrics into articles

Researchers include them as part of a long-running bet, which began in 1997.

Five Sweden-based scientists have been secretly inserting lyrics to Bob Dylan songs into their research articles, as part of a long-running gag between them. After 17 years in the discipline, the researchers revealed that they were in a race to quote Dylan as many times as possible before retirement, reported the Guardian.

The bet began in 1997, after Nature’s publication of a paper by Jon Lundberg and Eddie Weitzberg, Nitric Oxide and Inflammation: The Answer Is Blowing In the Wind. “Both of us really like Bob Dylan, so when we set about writing an article concerning the measurement of nitric oxide gas in both the respiratory tracts and the intestine, the title came up and it fitted here perfectly,” Weitzberg explained.

They thought the bet had come to an end, until several years later, when a librarian pointed out that two of the scientists’ colleagues, Jonas Frisén and Konstantinos Meletis, had used a different Dylan reference in a paper about the ability of non-neural cells to generate neurons, 2003’s Blood on the Tracks: A Simple Twist of Fate?

Soon a bet was struck that, “The one who has written most articles with Dylan quotes, before going into retirement, wins a lunch at the [local] restaurant Jöns Jacob,” Lundberg said. Word spread quickly through Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, where all four of the men work, and before long, a fifth competitor had entered the race.

Kenneth Chien, a professor of cardiovascular research, who is also keen on winning a free lunch, said by the time he met the others, he already had one Dylan paper to his name – Tangled Up in Blue: Molecular Cardiology in the Postmolecular Era, published in 1998. With five competing rivals, the pace of the Dylan references accelerated. This included Lundberg and Weitzberg’s The Biological Role of Nitrate and Nitrite: The Times They Are a-Changin’ in 2009, Eph Receptors Tangled Up in Two in 2010, and Dietary Nitrate – A Slow Train Coming in 2011.

Weitzberg was quick to clarify that the bet is not strictly restricted to scientific papers as it could have landed them into hot waters. “We could have gotten into trouble for that,” he said. “[This is for] articles we have written about research by others, book introductions, editorials and things like that,” remarked Weitzberg.

All of the scientists are great fans of Dylan and are of the opinion that he should have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, according to Weitzberg, but also wish to be known for their role as scientists. Weitzberg said, “I would much rather become famous for my scientific work than for my Bob Dylan quotes.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2014.

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