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Scientists rename genes because Microsoft Excel reads them as dates:
Microsoft Excel’s automatic formatting is normally helpful for finishing spreadsheets quickly, but it’s proving to be an agent of chaos for geneticists. The Verge has learned that the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee has issued guidelines for naming human genes to prevent Excel’s automatic date formatting from altering data. MARCH1 (Membrane Associated Ring-CH-Type Finger 1), for example, should now be labeled MARCHF1 to stop Excel from changing it to 1-Mar.
The names of 27 genes have been changed in the past year to avoid Excel-related errors, HGNC coordinator Elspeth Bruford said. This isn’t a rare error, either, as Excel had affected about a fifth of genetics-related papers examined in a 2016 study.
Journal Reference:
Mark Ziemann, Yotam Eren, Assam El-Osta. Gene name errors are widespread in the scientific literature [open], Genome Biology (DOI: 10.1186/s13059-016-1044-7)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MostCynical on Friday August 07 2020, @05:00AM
Most schools, colleges, and even research facilities, are run by managers, who are bureaucrats.
Budgets, bulk purchasing, licenses, software, hardware.. are all too hard for scientists to manage WHILE DOING SCIENCE..
This means that the people that buy the software ARE NOT the scientists, and, if the scientists ask for particular software it will almost certainly be expensive - and therefore not approved.
Worse: scientists, before they become scientists, are students, and before that, school students - all they may know is "excel", as they haven't ever seen anything else..
hammer/nails...
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex