Editing 901: Temperature

{{comic
| number    = 901
| date      = May 20, 2011
| title     = Temperature
| image     = temperature.png
| titletext = And the baby has a fever.
}}

==Explanation==
This is a play on the fact that many {{w|digital thermometers}} look similar to {{w|pregnancy tests}}. [[Cueball]], perhaps feeling ill, thinks he is using a thermometer to measure his body temperature and determine if he has a fever. As he is taking it orally, he is doubtless surprised when the thermometer tells him instead that he is pregnant.

The two bars on the 'thermometer' are the traditional lines that appear on a a common type of pregnancy test. One bar is the control line; it will become visible given any normal urine sample. If it doesn't appear, the test has been invalid. The other bar, the test line, reacts to {{w|human chorionic gonadotropin}}, a hormone that's released during pregnancy. If both lines become visible, the test result is positive; if only the control line becomes visible, the test result is negative. Other results are invalid, since the control line didn't appear. This type of visual indicator, for both pregnancy and [[2558: Rapid Test Results|other testing processes]], is so well understood that even the more complicated {{w|Lateral flow test#Quantitative tests|lateral flow readers}} with circuitry to detect nuances and a simple {{w|Liquid-crystal display|LCD display}} to announce the results will often feature a "one or two bar" display, either as a window on the actual "test line" strip or reproduced (as with this example) on the electronic output.

Depending upon the model, an ''actual'' thermometer may include a series of bars, alongside a {{w|Seven-segment display|set of readable digits}}, more displaying at higher registered temperatures. These may emulating the way {{w|Mercury-in-glass thermometer|various}} {{w|Alcohol thermometer|types} of traditional thermometer have the indicating liquid filling their stem past graduations, but, being necessarily of coarser precision than a value, perhaps only as a gimicky visual metaphor or else to clearly highlight temperatures that are significant or out of range (e.g. the top bars shaped as the words "fever" and "error", if ever they are displayed during use/mis-use of the device). It is unknown what just two bars would indicate, if they were shown on a true digital-display thermometer, but the placement suggests it ''could'' have meant a measurement above room(/ambient) temperature but nowhere near expected body temperature.

Thermometers are typically used to measure temperature, and the title text notes that this clever thermometer has also detected a fever in the baby, presumably somewhere inside Cueball. [[3001: Temperature Scales]] discusses units of measurement.

==Transcript==
:[A close up of Cueball with a thermometer in his mouth.]

:[The thermometer beeps.]
:Thermometer: BEEP

:[A full-body shot of Cueball looking down at the thermometer.]

:[A close-up of the thermometer's read-out.]
:Thermometer: PREGNANT

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]