Cast in the same mold

A gallant gesture from a UA professor

And they say romance is dead …

Don’t tell that to Steve Stevenson. He took his wife, Barbara, on a trip two years ago to Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.

No, that’s not exactly known as a popular romantic getaway.

The Stephensons were drawn to the island for a slightly different reason. They were there to collect slime molds, fungus-like organisms that Steve has traveled the world to find. He’s a research professor in the University of Arkansas’ Department of Biological Sciences, according to a news release from the University of Arkansas.

It turns out during that trip he discovered two species of slime molds that are new to science. Discovering a new species gives a researcher the opportunity to name it. And that’s where the gooey romance comes in.

One of the new finds is now known in the science world as Dictyostelium barbarae. If that sounds slightly familiar, don’t forget who accompanied Steve on that trip.

That’s right. He named a slime mold species after his wife.

So maybe that’s not every spouse’s idea of a gesture from the heart, but give it a minute. It’ll grow on you.

Something tells us Barbara gets it. She’s a UA math instructor who has accompanied her husband on slime mold collecting trips all over the world.

And now, she can join Bill Murray as one of the few people on the planet who can honestly utter these words: “He slimed me.”

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