2010-10-06
Explanation
This comic is structured in two panels with a flashback. In the first panel, investigators examine the body of "Professor Carroll," noting that enemy nations wanted him dead, but his death appears natural -- he simultaneously died of a heart attack, aneurysm, and stroke, which seems impossible for an assassin to arrange.
The "Earlier..." flashback reveals the true cause: someone offered the professor 20 billion dollars for his reactor physics experiment, with one catch -- he must pronounce it "nookular" (a common mispronunciation of "nuclear," famously associated with President George W. Bush). The joke is that asking a physicist to mispronounce the word "nuclear" is so physically revolting to them that it literally killed him on the spot from the combined stress of a heart attack, aneurysm, and stroke. The comic plays on the well-known pet peeve that scientists and linguists have about this particular mispronunciation, exaggerating their disdain to a lethal extreme.