We Just Needed An Excuse to Use Disco Clam in a Post

We haven't met Jennifer Viegas, yet, but we like the cut of her journalistic jib.

Viegas, a reporter for Discovery News, dropped this lede in a story headlined 'Disco Clam Freezes Prey with Toxic Snot':

"The disco clam, so named because light flashes from its mirrored “lips,” turns out to be the disco ball from hell. New research has found that the clam’s impressive light show attracts prey, which may be rendered immobile by noxious, acidic mucus produced by the busy bivalve."

But she didn't stop there with the barely disguised innuendo in service of scientific knowledge-dropping. Check out this passage about forbidden (wo)man/bivalve love:

"At first it was thought that the clam might be trying to woo mates, but that sentiment might have been felt more by researcher Lindsey Dougherty of UC Berkeley. She was thrilled when she first encountered the unique clams in a dark, underwater cave during a dive in Indonesia.

'It was on that trip I first saw the disco clam, and immediately fell in love,' reminisced Dougherty in a press release."

We can't really blame Dougherty (or Viegas, for that matter). Ctenoides ales is a funky, funky beast. Dig its light show stylings:



Viegas has been on fire over the past month, riffing on whale longevity, black widow potency, the Large Hadron Collider (!), vomit, and clairvoyant animals. Consider her on the G:TB radar. We can never have too much entendre-laden science writing.