Difference between revisions of "901: Temperature"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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(Doubly Surprised)
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==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
This is a simple play on the fact that many {{w|digital thermometers}} look similar to {{w|pregnancy tests}}. [[Cueball]], feeling ill, is using a thermometer to determine whether he has a fever or not, and is surprised to learn that, apparently, he is pregnant.
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This is a play on the fact that many {{w|digital thermometers}} look similar to {{w|pregnancy tests}}. [[Cueball]], perhaps feeling ill, is using a thermometer to measure his body temperature and determine if he has a fever. As a male, he is presumably doubly surprised when the thermometer tells him instead that he is pregnant.
  
The two bars on the thermometer are similar to the two lines that appear on a traditional pregnancy tests. One bar is the control line; it will become visible given any normal urine sample. If it doesn't appear, the test is 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.
+
The two bars on the thermometer are similar to lines that appear on a traditional pregnancy tests. One bar is the control line; it will become visible given any normal urine sample. If it doesn't appear, the test is 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.
  
Since thermometers are typically used to measure fevers, the title text notes that, apparently, the thermometer gave this reading because it detected a fever in the baby.
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Thermometers are typically used to measure temperature, and the title text notes that this clever thermometer has also detected a fever in the baby.
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==

Revision as of 19:50, 22 January 2014

Temperature
And the baby has a fever.
Title text: And the baby has a fever.

Explanation

This is a play on the fact that many digital thermometers look similar to pregnancy tests. Cueball, perhaps feeling ill, is using a thermometer to measure his body temperature and determine if he has a fever. As a male, he is presumably doubly surprised when the thermometer tells him instead that he is pregnant.

The two bars on the thermometer are similar to lines that appear on a traditional pregnancy tests. One bar is the control line; it will become visible given any normal urine sample. If it doesn't appear, the test is invalid. The other bar, the test line, reacts to 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.

Thermometers are typically used to measure temperature, and the title text notes that this clever thermometer has also detected a fever in the baby.

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


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Discussion

Apparently, male pregnancy is a thing. It requires surgery and artificial implantation, but it's a legitimate thing that yields live babies. Davidy²²[talk] 02:00, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Link? That's really difficult to believe. Theo (talk) 18:13, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_%28film%29 <-- reference 184.66.160.91 03:07, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
That movie is fiction. Where is the reference to the actual fact? FlavianusEP (talk) 16:31, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Just a bit of trivia: there's a photo online of a pregnancy test where the control line is not (or faintly) visible and the test line is very visible. Someone said that it can happen if there was so much of that hormone that the test line drained ink from the control line. 173.245.48.24 04:10, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

If that happened you'd probably try again on a new test, possibly a different brand. If it kept happening it would probably want to see a doctor because something's going on there... -Pennpenn 108.162.250.162 01:52, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

18 days of elevated basal body temperature are a sign of pregnancy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_body_temperature, no source given there, but I’ve read this somewhere else™ before). 162.158.94.224 09:03, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

What if the pregnancy tests didn’t tell him he was pregnant, it just was already used? SilverTheTerribleMathematician (talk) 05:30, 10 December 2022 (UTC)