Celebrity Pharmaceuticals

Celebrity endorsement/branding is nothing new. Pro athletes have their names plastered on all kinds of sports gear; supermodels are linked to cosmetics; there’s even a Lego set for every DC and Marvel Comics superhero that was ever created by global warming, global cooling, toxic exposure, insect bites, supernatural intervention, pickle ball addiction, etc.

Here at The Department of Lateral Thinking we, well really just Sarge and I, feel compelled to share some breaking celebrity endorsement news with you, as it were, the alert readers. This breaking news concerns a development in the world of natural anti-fungal compounds. This will be especially relevant to those of you watching “The Last of Us” television series.

The Last of Us is a post-apocalyptic pandemic tale in which a remnant of humanity, apparently located in and around Calgary, Alberta, fights to survive ravening hordes of zombies created by the mushroom Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, otherwise known as the “zombie ant fungus,” infects ants and eventually causes them to lie down and wait for baby mushrooms to sprout from their heads. This might be the same fungus that causes teenagers to, zombie-like, leave their PE equipment at school until it becomes self-aware.

Anyway, in The Last of Us, Ophiocordyceps, driven by global warming and pronoun overuse, mutates and gains the ability to infect humans. Other factors contributing to the pandemic include rampant abuse of prescription toenail fungus medication (in turn driven by incessant TV ads for prescription toenail fungus medication) and also dirty socks.

You’re probably wondering what the heck all this has to do with celebrities.

Turns out that German researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research, Infection Biology and Ve Haff Vays Of Making You Talk, have discovered a family of lipopeptides that are very effective at combating fungal infections in humans. In the words of one of the researchers, Sebastian Götze, “The lipopeptides kill so efficiently that we named them after Keanu Reeves because he, too, is extremely deadly in his roles.” (Ed. Note: Neo, John Wick, Johnny Utah, Mr. Rogers)

That was a totally logical next move on their part. God bless the Germans!

: )

Not that you care but these lipopeptides were found lurking in the secretions of a Pseudomonas bacteria species that was using the lipopeptides to fight predatory amoeba. I can’t wait for that movie to come out. Seriously. There is a war going on down there: Fauci vs respiratory viruses vs bacteria vs amoebae vs fungi vs phage viruses: all of them firing natural compounds back and forth at each other with reckless abandon. Who knew?

Anyway, here is Keanumycin A:

Like you, this makes me think that maybe The Bitchin’ Lipopeptides could be a pretty decent, if not excellent, name for a band. If you’re into Biochemistry. But unlike you, the next thought that popped into my head out of nowhere was this: What if there were other pharmaceuticals named after celebrities?

THE ADMITTEDLY SHORT LTD LIST OF OTHER CELEBRITY PHARMACEUTICALS

Macrobiden: works for bladder infections but is completely ineffective against border leakage

Trudofloxacin: induces megalomania and is brutally effective against trucker convoys

Bradycycline: enables pro QBs to stay in the pocket for decades

(If anyone happens to think of any additions to this list feel free to send your thoughts along to: https://lateralthinkingdepartment.com/contact/)

Speaking of celebrities, at this point I have to interrupt this post to bring more breaking news about Celebrity Mullets and specifically, Presidential Mullets. Hell Yeah! You heard me.

Kudos to podcaster and comedian, Cam Harless, who sported his own mullet back in the 80’s. Rumor has it that his mullet was visible on fetal ultrasound. Anyway, fast forward to recently, when Cam hit upon the notion of using an AI art generator to give each POTUS a new look. In his words, and thanks to the AI: “These Presidents look dope in a mullet.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Here’s the poster he created for the occasion. He calls it the Hell Yeah edition. You can buy it on Etsy.

I’m gonna wait for the T-shirt.

Next month: What is the plural of POTUS? And virus?

Note: The ideas for this blog came from faithful contributors to Dave Barry’s blog: https://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/. Thank you Dave and thank you loyal contributors!