CuNT: Copper nanotubes. The most unfortunate scientific name of all time, or the very best?

I hear the word [nanotube] and my mind goes to [carbon nanotube|carbon nanotubes], as may yours. Most of the nanotubes we've heard or read about have been made of carbon, so it's a natural connection. "Nanotube" in most people's minds also means they're made of carbon, which [ain't necessarily so]. Cue a few Chinese researchers, YingNi Duan, JianMin Zhang and KeWei Xu, researching [copper] nanotubes. Because many in the field abbreviate nanotube to NT, they made reference to their copper nanoubes as "CuNT", i.e. nanotubes of [Cu], the chemical abbreviation for copper. Unfortunately, if hilariously, several people picked up on this, which was mentioned in their paper "Structural and electronic properties of chiral single-wall copper nanotubes" thus:

…The structural, energetic and electronic properties of chiral (n, m) (3⩽n⩽6, n/2⩽m⩽n) single-wall copper nanotubes (CuNTs) have been investigated by using projector-augmented wave method based on density-functional theory. The (4, 3) CuNT is energetically stable and should be observed experimentally in both free-standing and tip-suspended conditions, whereas the (5, 5) and (6, 4) CuNTs should be observed in free-standing and tip-suspended conditions, respectively.…

"I study tip-suspended CuNTs"… Uncomfortable laughter echoes around Western scientists' circles as the CuNT news doubtless became public; I can imagine it becoming quite the meme and poster child for care in naming things, for all time.The Chinese are also apparently researching [Bismuth] nanotubes. [BiNT], anyone? Only slightly less challenging, still slightly suspect.

The above-named innocents can hardly be blamed for this [faux pas], ignorant as they no doubt are regarding English rude words (I'm fairly certain that very few (if any) science training includes a warning about he potential of naming things for foreign rude words. The reverse could equally be true for any non-Chinese scientist inadvertently naming something shameful to a Chinese reader, so we shouldn't be too hard on them. I feel [Fremdscham|fremdscham] for them all, no doubt they're throughly embarrassed by the whole thing.

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11433-013-5387-8|Link to the paper Structural and electronic properties of chiral single-wall copper nanotubes]

$ [xclip] -o | [wc[by dorward]] -w
296 when written for [Brevity Quest 2025|BQ25]

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