A Chinese scientist has named 16 new spider species after songs by popular Taiwanese musician Jay Chou (周杰倫).
Mi Xiaoqi (米小其), a professor at Tongren University in China’s southwestern Guizhou Province, listed the newly discovered arachnids in a paper published in the academic journal Zoological Research: Diversity and Conservation.
The paper, published last month, has gone viral since being discovered by Internet users, with a related hashtag on microblogging social media racking up over 26 million views since Wednesday last week. Internet users have since dubbed Mi, 44, the “Ultimate Fan.” One of the arachnids — the 3.5mm long Cyclosa xingqing sp. nov. or “Starry Mood spider” — is named after a hit love song from Chou’s debut album Jay released in 2000.
Photo: CNA
Others are named after similarly beloved tunes, including “Rainbow spider,” “Dragon Fist spider”, and “Excuse spider.”
Taiwanese Chou, renowned for his dramatic romance ballads and pop beats, is one of the world’s most popular Mandarin-language artists, having sold more than 30 million records.
The 45-year-old has been a household name in China and beyond for more than two decades.
Now his songs would be immortalized, as the names of the eight-legged critters that Mi and his colleagues recently discovered in Yunnan, China.
The “Secret Code spider,” a 2.36mm yellowish brown web-weaving arachnid, is named after Chou’s 2002 love song featured on his acclaimed album The Eight Dimensions.
It is unclear how the song, in which Chou croons “Don’t ever leave, you are missing the missing piece in my world,” relates to the spider.
Excuse spider, a fuzzy brown and white critter, shares its name with a track from Chou’s 2004 album Common Jasmine Orange, the best-selling physical album in China this century according to Guinness World Records.
Mi, who published the paper with fellow researchers Wang Cheng (王成) and Li Shuqiang (李樞?), has been a Jay Chou fan since his undergraduate days, according to Chinese state media outlet Xinhua.
“Naming spiders after Jay Chou’s songs brings scientific research closer to the public. I hope more people will pay attention to scientific research and support ecological protection,” he told Xinhua.
This is not the first time Chou’s name has been used for scientific discoveries. In 2011, astronomers in Taiwan named an asteroid after the singer.
Australia has announced an agreement with the tiny Pacific nation Nauru enabling it to send hundreds of immigrants to the barren island. The deal affects more than 220 immigrants in Australia, including some convicted of serious crimes. Australian Minister of Home Affairs Tony Burke signed the memorandum of understanding on a visit to Nauru, the government said in a statement on Friday. “It contains undertakings for the proper treatment and long-term residence of people who have no legal right to stay in Australia, to be received in Nauru,” it said. “Australia will provide funding to underpin this arrangement and support Nauru’s long-term economic
‘NEO-NAZIS’: A minister described the rally as ‘spreading hate’ and ‘dividing our communities,’ adding that it had been organized and promoted by far-right groups Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies across the country yesterday that the center-left government condemned, saying they sought to spread hate and were linked to neo-Nazis. “March for Australia” rallies against immigration were held in Sydney, and other state capitals and regional centers, according to the group’s Web site. “Mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together,” the Web site said. The group posted on X on Saturday that the rallies aimed to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration.” The group also said it was concerned about culture,
ANGER: Unrest worsened after a taxi driver was killed by a police vehicle on Thursday, as protesters set alight government buildings across the nation Protests worsened overnight across major cities of Indonesia, far beyond the capital, Jakarta, as demonstrators defied Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s call for calm. The most serious unrest was seen in the eastern city of Makassar, while protests also unfolded in Bandung, Surabaya, Solo and Yogyakarta. By yesterday morning, crowds had dispersed in Jakarta. Troops patrolled the streets with tactical vehicles and helped civilians clear trash, although smoke was still rising in various protest sites. Three people died and five were injured in Makassar when protesters set fire to the regional parliament building during a plenary session on Friday evening, according to
STILL AFLOAT: Satellite images show that a Chinese ship damaged in a collision earlier this month was under repair on Hainan, but Beijing has not commented on the incident Australia, Canada and the Philippines on Wednesday deployed three warships and aircraft for drills against simulated aerial threats off a disputed South China Sea shoal where Chinese forces have used risky maneuvers to try to drive away Manila’s aircraft and ships. The Philippine military said the naval drills east of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) were concluded safely, and it did not mention any encounter with China’s coast guard, navy or suspected militia ships, which have been closely guarding the uninhabited fishing atoll off northwestern Philippines for years. Chinese officials did not immediately issue any comment on the naval drills, but they
RSS