So they didn't go with Boaty McBoatface as voted by public.

Oh yes, definitely the best of both worlds!    

Boaty is the perfect name for the robotic sub sea vehicle this ship carries - and the Royal Navy won't now have to find a nickname for it because 'Boaty' is the perfect one!  

I meant in the global sense. I realize to you it's a good name and maybe you hear about the research all the time. But I can tell you that American interest has now been lost. And that's totally fine. You don't have to do things for us, but I think for a global impact particularly for children, it's a lost opportunity.

I know who it's named for. And I think it's a nice honor. But as a scientist I was hopeful for the outreach and interest this brought to real research.I'm hopeful that the sub drives that interest in a similar manner.

I feel like scientists cannot afford to be hidden behind cultural and geographical boundaries. If no one else will come together to promote knowledge and discovery and it's benefits to humanity as a whole, we owe that to the world.

Scientists should not be worried about the governments, and independent monies can be extremely useful to that pursuit, because it frees us from political motivations. When government money is how research goes on you are always going to introduce bias. And that's something we should all be very concerned about.

I honestly don't believe that real American interest in the ship would have been maintained even if they had gone with that name.  

It's a British research vessel with British interests and areas as projects and under normal circumstances, like our other research vessels, will not warrant many column inches, air time or education time in the US when she starts operations in the future because it will not be of any relevance or interest to children and the general public in the USA.  

You have your own research vessels.  We in the UK, schoolchildren and general public, do not hear anything about the United States Antarctic Program projects or vessels or your NOAAA vessels and projects etc., under normal circumstances.  

I can't see one vessel with a jokey name anything like the one suggested in the list of US Research Vessel names for instance but maybe you will get one in the future to help with scientific education now that we have decided against it.    

Just my opinion of course!  Not scientific but I do care hugely about our Royal Navy and vessels crewed by Naval personnel.     

Naming the robotic sub sea vessel 'Boaty' that the RRS Sir David Attenborough will carry is perfect.  These little craft always acquire nicknames and this one will have a ready made nickname!  Whether it makes any impact on the scientific education of children here or anywhere, remains to be seen.    

On my car radio yesterday I heard both UK stories: the Boaty/Attenborough story and the story about the Muslim man being elected mayor of London. 

Among all the other news (Trump! Trump! Did I mention Trump?!), these were a welcome respite. Keep them coming, please.

raindancer, I didn't say that research itself isn't shared globally, doesn't become common knowledge or part of education. I said the vessels or methods involved and names of people doing the research rarely impact, or are of interest to, the general public so wouldn't attract media coverage in the years ahead in the US anyway, jokey name or not! It's the subject of the research which gets media coverage. 

In this particular case, the ship is still being built and won't enter service until 2019......by then very few people will even remember the discussion about a name, and in five, six, seven years time when completed research results start coming it will be history and have been forgotten altogether!  It will be at the very least ten years before any of the results from that research reach High School classrooms. 

As a scientist you know that a lot of research projects now involve scientists from around the world and the results of that research are shared, particularly about Planet Earth.  What does not usually impact with the vast majority of people is the names of those involved in the research or the name of the project, no matter what it is called.

A while ago, my husband did several eight month voyages in the Pacific with a large team of international scientists on British ships with very memorable names.  Today the research they did is an established part of the shared pool on that subject but there are very few people who could name where the research took place or what the project was called!

And of course there are going to be UK this, US that, Canadian this, Australian that, New Zealand this things about science or anything else........!  The only way of that not happening would be a world happy to have common funding with no country name attached to it and everyone having an equal say - and that doesn't look like a possibility any time soon!   

Anyway, I think we have to agree to differ on this.  Oh, and by the way, no panties wadding here, just not my style.