Word: prefixing
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...Sendek is the brains behind a burgeoning Internet effort to make hella- an officially recognized scientific-unit prefix, representing the magnitude of 1.0x1027, expressed by the number 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. What started as a joke between a few of Sendek's friends has become hella popular, growing into the loftily named Facebook group "The Official Petition to Establish 'Hella-' as the SI Prefix for 10^27," comprising nearly 50,000 like-minded nerds and fans of NoCal parlance. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries...
...effort stems from the fact that many numbers - particularly large ones - don't have official names. Small ones are familiar - mega- is the officially recognized prefix for 1.0x106, or 1 million. Giga- is the prefix for 1.0x109, or 1 billion. But past 1.0x1024, or yotta-, there are no official names. (With one notable exception: 1.0x10100 was set aside as googol- in 1938 - long before being respelled by Larry Page and Sergey Brin 60 years later for Google, their upstart search engine...
...history has taught us anything (Ron Paul for President! Snakes on a Plane!), it's that even the most dedicated of Internet campaigns have a tough time achieving much in the real world. And despite his efforts, Sendek says he doubts hella- will become an officially recognized prefix anytime soon. After the story in the Bee, Sendek says he received an e-mail from the chairman of the Consultative Committee of Units at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, the group tasked with creating worldwide standards for scientific prefixes. "He said he appreciated the humor but didn't think...
...Part of the reason is that there's not much reason for numbers that big to have names, since they're seldom used. But the scientist in Sendek is hopeful that the prefix's day might come. "We're always learning more about the universe, stars, black holes, planets and galaxies," Sendek says. "That's when those big numbers start to come...
...changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material - the epigenome - that sits on top of the genome, just outside it (hence the prefix epi-, which means above). It is these epigenetic "marks" that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors like diet, stress and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation...