Punning boffins knockin’ on Bob Dylan’s door for inspiration

The times they are a-changin’ in medical science, but many researchers are stuck in a time-warp, drawing inspiration for their research from singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

As Tim Sandle of Digital Journal reveals, many scientists are Dylan fans and since 1970 the singer-songwriter’s lyrics have been cropping up in their research papers. To date, 727 papers have been tracked as featuring Dylan’s verse.

Dylan’s lyrics and song titles often crop up as cringe-inducing puns, including a stem cell investigation, Like a Rolling Histone, and a germination study titled Knockin’ On Pollen’s Door. An editorial in the British Medical Journal , about the risk of hang gliding, was titled Blowin’ in the Wind.

Occasionally, the references were downright inspired. One author in Burns, the journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries, began an article by writing, “Come editors and authors throughout the land...” Each proceeding passage began with a quote from the same Dylan song.

According to The Washington Post, the first example of Dylan lyrics in a peer-reviewed paper can be traced to a 1970 edition of The Journal of Practical Nursing which took its headline from The Times They Are a-Changin’ just six years after the song and album of that name were released.

That song tops the list with 135 articles, followed by 36 occurrences for Blowin’ in the Wind.

The historic review began last year when word spread that researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden had long been sneaking Bob Dylan lyrics into their work.

A librarian at the university decided to do some research. “I thought, these Swedish guys, they can’t be unique,” said Carl Gornitzki. “It was just a curiosity.” He and two colleagues scoured medical literature around the world and found more than 200 examples of papers citing Dylan, according to the British Medical Journal.

During the festive season, the BMJ publishes whimsical studies and this year a review of Dylan citations has been compiled for the Christmas edition of the journal.

It notes that references to Dylan were steady between 1970 and 1990 but since 1990 the rate of mentions has increased substantially, perhaps reflecting the age and musical tastes of the scientists writing the papers.

The citations continued through much of the 1970s, then dropped off sharply before rebounding beginning in 1990.

You can read the BMJ paper, which adapted another Dylan lyric for its headline (Freewheelin’ scientists: citing Bob Dylan in the biomedical literature), at www.bmj.com.