We’ve all heard of finding easter eggs in movies and video games. Little hidden gems that you have to look super closely to find. Well, scientists and the papers we write are no different! Here are some of the best we could find for you to enjoy while you bear down on way too much ovoid-shaped chocolate indulgence.

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind

For about 15 years now, five scientists from Sweden have been sneaking Bob Dylan lyrics into their journal articles as part of a bet to see who can reference Dylan the most before they retire. Heroes.

Structural and electronic properties of chiral single-wall copper nanotubes

Not sure this is an easter egg, technically, but, well, we’ll just leave this here (NSFW?).

Never gonna give you up

No, it’s not 2010, but this is still gold! A computer scientist Rickrolled everyone with their tale on the disadvantages and advantages of networks, essay. Thank you, /u/Mayniac182, your work will not be forgotten

Donald Trump’s face on a poo

The internet will never forget the time scientists managed to publish Donald Trump’s face on a cartoon image of baboon feces. The paper published in Scientific Reports has since been taken down but you can still find the image here.

Guy made his cat a co-author

That’s right, there’s cats out there who may have more papers than you. In 1975, Jack Hetherington made his cat F.D.C. Willard a co-author on his paper published in Physical Review Letters. F.D.C. Willard even has his own wiki page.

Overly honest acknowledgements

The acknowledgements are dry and dusty space, reserved for formulaic text thanking those people you just kinda have to. Or are they? Mean reviewer? Call them out! Something to get off your chest? Now’s your chance (Warning: your career may, or may not, suffer – don’t blame us!)

Acknowledgements in this paper are definitely one for #overlyhonestmethods!

Even humanities researches have beef with reviewers:

“We don’t need to copyedit – just send it to the journal!”

Ahh yes, copyediting – ain’t nobody got time for that.

Although association preferences documented in our study theoretically could be a consequence of either mating or shoaling preferences in the different female groups investigated (should we cite the crappy Gabor paper here?), shoaling preferences are unlikely drivers of the documented patterns both because of evidence from previous research and inconsistencies with a priori predictions.

Sadly, this has now been edited. But the internet never forgets!

Actual easter egg hunt in a paper

Finally, there was the time an actual easter egg hunt made the title of a paper. Staphylococcal food poisoning associated with an Easter egg hunt was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association back in 1984. Take a look at this madness right here.

Photo by Denisse Leon on Unsplash

Fancy writing for Tipbox? Got an awesome story to tell? Then we want to hear! Drop us an email at tipbox@abcam.com with story pitches, ideas, hilarious bants, or maybe you just want a bit of a chat. Whatever it is, we want it. And then we'll share it. You may or may not become instantly famous.