A group of scientists have revealed a long-running competition to place the most Bob Dylan quotes into their articles with the winner getting a free lunch at their favourite restaurant.
According to the Guardian the competition has been running for an incredible 17 years but the group of five scientists from Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute have only now decided to reveal the game.
It all started in 1997 when Jon Lundberg and Eddie Weitzberg published their paper: Nitric Oxide and Inflammation: The Answer Is Blowing In the Wind.
From there it took two years until a librarian noticed that two other colleagues, Jonas Frisén and Konstantinos Meletis had also written a paper with a similar twist in the title: Blood on the Tracks: A Simple Twist of Fate?
From that point onwards the bet was struck, that before their retirement the four colleagues would compete to get the most Dylan quotes into their papers.
From there a fifth and final competitor was found, Professor Kenneth Chien who gained entry into the club via his outstandingly titled: Tangled Up in Blue: Molecular Cardiology in the Postmolecular Era.
Since then, the Guardian reports, the pace has somewhat increased with such gems as: The Biological Role of Nitrate and Nitrite: The Times They Are a-Changin’, Eph Receptors Tangled Up in Two and the seminal Dietary Nitrate – A Slow Train Coming.
According to Weitzberg the group set on some ground rules, avoiding serious papers for lighter more editorial-based pieces instead saying, '[This is for] articles we have written about research by others, book introductions, editorials and things like that.”