this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] groet@feddit.org 31 points 2 days ago (4 children)
  • ducks are fish
  • dinosaurs are fish
  • horses are fish
  • pterodactyls are fish
  • humans are fish
[–] spacegoat@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] groet@feddit.org 10 points 2 days ago

But not all. That would be ridiculous!

[–] OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But not cartilaginous fish. That's where I draw the line.

Lobe finned, not ray.

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[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 111 points 3 days ago (5 children)

My attempt at an explanation

  • Ducks are dinosaurs: Ducks, as with all birds, evolved from theropods and are considered living dinosaurs.

  • Horses walk on middle fingers: Ancestors of modern horses have 5 toes the size of a small dog. Eventually they evolved away the other toes and only the middle toe remain.

  • Bees are crustaceans: Crustacea is not a single branch in the tree of life but a collection of multiple branches (i.e. paraphyletic). If we pick a point and said everything after that is considered the same group, then by necessity we have to put bees (and all hexapoda) and what we traditionally call crustaceans into a single group. That group would be pancrustacea. Is that exactly the same as saying bees are crustaceans? Are jackdaws crows? I'll let you decide.

  • Pterodactyls are fish: Fish is also not a single branch. By the same token, if we want to put what we traditionally counted as fish (such as sharks, carps, and lungfishes) together as a single group, we have to include all vertebrates (which includes pterodactyls, us, whales, etc.)

  • Redwood are algae: I'm not too sure about this one. The wikipedia page for algae say that it excludes the land plants (embryophytes) which redwoods are part of.

  • Humans are part virus: Viruses have the ability inject and splice their genetic material into our genome and have our cells do the cloning for them. Usually it is not passed on to the next generation. Apparently an ancient strain of virus from millions of years ago incorporated themselves into our genome and our germ cells (sperm and egg) and can be passed on to the next generation.

[–] nialv7@lemmy.world 67 points 3 days ago (3 children)

an ancient strain of virus from millions of years ago incorporated themselves into our genome

not just one. 5-8% of the human genome comes from viruses

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 15 points 3 days ago

And provides fertile ground for evolution by providing space for gene duplication and divergence. Likely also for miRNA control systems.

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[–] deranger@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Everything is virus: one of the theories of how cells went from RNA to DNA is viruses.

Forterre (2006) proposed that early cellular lineages diversified while still harboring RNA genomes, with viruses and cells coexisting from the beginning. In his model, the first fixation of DNA occurred in viruses, which subsequently transferred the enzymes necessary for DNA synthesis and maintenance into independent cellular lineages. Thus, RNA genomes in ancestral cells were converted into DNA genomes via viral intermediates (Forterre, 2002, 2006). The structural and functional differences among cellular replication systems would then reflect the independent viral origins of DNA replication machinery.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0303264725002813

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[–] Rudee@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

Damn, how did the horse ancestors walk with toes the size of small dogs?

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 points 1 day ago

Agent Smith was... Right?

[–] Limonene@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

It's homologous with a human's middle finger. That doesn't make it a middle finger.

[–] qualia@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Humans share a common ancestor with tardigrades.

[–] x0x7@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Almost everything is a worm. Not just in heredity, but also in form. You are a worm that uses long mineral deposits and muscles to stand erect and move around in an erect position for some reason. Weirdest worm.

[–] qualia@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Hoxers unite!

[–] Bourff@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You can go to the endgame directly: every and all living organisms share a common ancestor.

[–] m0darn@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

every and all living organisms [that we know of]

[–] Danarchy@lemmy.nz 50 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] enbiousenvy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

french is fries which is belgian

Which is also waffles, so I only make pancakes.

[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 15 points 3 days ago

Knowledge is power.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 33 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

Human are an advanced bio mech suit for bacteria. Human cells - 37 trillion (majority red blood cells). Bacteria in the human body - 38 trillion.

There is a non-zero chance that the human consciousness is the product of bacteria forming a mesh neural network that hijacks the human brain's voluntary functions.

[–] niktemadur@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago

Here's my out-there take on consciousness:
Picture a surface of incredibly high but stable energies, like the one on a pulsar. Now imagine that those energies manage to shake a fundamental consciousness field hard enough at a large enough scale, that virtual consciousness and anti-consciousness pairs constantly bubble in and out of existence.

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 11 points 2 days ago

babe wake up new genre of existential crisis just dropped

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It could explain why some people suffer emotional distress while under antibiotics (I get severe depression).

More than 90% of the serotonin in your body is produced in your gut in a process that is regulated by bacteria. This serotonin not only aids in digestion, but interacts with nerves that communicate with the central nervous system to alter mood and mental health

If you experience severe depression under antibiotics, you might try to take some probiotic supplements that have strains including Lactobacillus and Streptococcus along with a helping of some soluble fiber.

[–] icanbrewmushrooms@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The serotonin in your gut can't pass through the gut-blood barrier, and therefore never reaches your brain, so it has no effect whatsoever on your ability to feel happy.

Unripe bananas are full of serotonin (which breaks down to melotonin as they ripen), but the only effect that has on your body is to give you diarrhoea.

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

serotonin in your gut can't pass through the gut-blood barrier

I didn't claim that it passed through the gut-blood barrier or directly influenced your cns. I said that it interacts with nerves that communicate with your central nervous system, this two way system is called the gut-brain axis.

has no effect whatsoever on your ability to feel happy

I mean, this is just incorrect .

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[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It could explain why some people suffer emotional distress while under antibiotics

Or just that nuking gut bacteria messes with the gut brain axis...

[–] LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago

I do like that the brain gives itself immune privilege and the blood brain barrier, it's like "miss me with that shit" haha

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 days ago

On a more serious note, Some Assembly Required by Neil Shubin has a lot of fascinating stuff like this about evolution.

[–] jaded_genie@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Ducks are avians, thus descended from dinosaurs.

Anatomically, the hoof of a horse is equivalent to a human middle fingernail.

There are "sea bees" tiny crustaceans that are pollinators of underwater plants. Both crustaceans and "bugs" are arthropods.

Not sure about the pterodactyl fish reference.

Redwoods and all plants really descend from photosynthetic algae.

About 8% of the human genome is composed of ancient viral DNA from viruses that integrated into DNA...

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Well everything is a fish or fish don't exist.

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[–] iilwl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's cladistics.

"Theoretically, a last common ancestor and all its descendants constitute a (minimal) clade. Importantly, all descendants stay in their overarching ancestral clade. For example, if the terms worms or fishes were used within a strict cladistic framework, these terms would include humans."

[–] arctanthrope@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago (3 children)

so basically it's a language problem, not a biology problem? people are incorrectly assuming that any group of species with a word to describe it must be monophyletic, and therefore include all unrelated species which would make it monophyletic?

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[–] Omnipitaph@reddthat.com 3 points 2 days ago
[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 13 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] crazycraw@crazypeople.online 14 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Yeahhh, I looked it up and I don't know what OP meant. there are redwood lichen who live symbiotically with the trees but are separate life forms.

Then there's the "redwoods of the sea" huge kelp like algae structures that resemble tree growth patterns but.. like aren't the actual redwood trees.

soooo yeah. I dunno.

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[–] mrmisses@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago (12 children)
[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

they did give mammals the placenta. since the placenta forms by forming syncitia(fusing of cells), which also some viruses induces animal cells.

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