Dr. Tyrone Hayes is a biologist at UC Berkeley and a longtime critic of atrazine, an herbicide produced by the chemical company Syngenta. He took the bold step of sending lots of taunting, rap-quoting emails to the company. Scandal ensued.

According to Nature, Hayes, who "grew up in a tough South Carolina community," has been in a dispute with Syngenta for a decade, with the company trying to cast doubt on Hayes' research which links atrazine to cancer in humans and reproductive mix-ups in frogs. After "a heated encounter with a Syngenta scientist," Hayes kind of lost it. Syngenta filed a complaint with Hayes' university, and included the following emails that he sent to various people at the company.

And there are several more! Including one in which Tyrone introduces Syngenta to the term "tea bag," and another one in which he concludes with the Bernie Mac quote, "you don't understand... i ain't scared o' you m***f***s." You know, everybody would love it if this happened in a Katt Williams movie or something, but when a guy does it in real life then suddenly the pesticide company has to go crying to the guy's boss. We stand with you, Dr. Tyrone Hayes. Please C.C. me on all future emails containing threats of jiz.

[Nature. Pic via]