Lady Gaga has had a newly identified genus of fern named after her.
Obviously.
"We wanted to name this genus for Lady Gaga because of her fervent defense of equality and individual expression," said Kathleen Pryer, a professor of biology at Duke University and director of the school’s herbarium (!) (as quoted here).
"And as we started to consider it, the ferns themselves gave us more reasons why it was a good choice."
Apparently the fern — which is made up of 19 species within that genus — "has somewhat fluid definitions of gender" and even had the sequence GAGA in its DNA.
Also, the bods at the University are quite big Gaga fans, so that helped too: "We think that her second album, 'Born this Way', is enormously empowering especially for disenfranchised people and communities like LGBT, ethnic groups, women — and scientists who study odd ferns!"
Amazing.
