this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
61 points (96.9% liked)

Science Memes

20245 readers
2228 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 12 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 25 points 1 week ago

There's good evolutionary reasons for babies to not possess a copy of the parents brains. It allows for much better adaptation to the current surroundings, and thus better survival of the species.

[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They would never survive urban life given their susceptability to disease

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

yeah this would probably result in a D&D Beholder type species that necessarily has to hate and be revolted by others' presence simply to keep the species from immediately dying of disease

[–] y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] lengau@midwest.social 4 points 1 week ago

No, fission. Each generation is made of progressively lighter atoms until they're just balls of hydrogen, the true end goal of all sentient species.

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Not sure if this could instead count as meiosis. But yeah, one of the two.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Is it safe to assume that fission in a complex organism would actually transfer learning?

I'm not confident enough in my grasp of it to say either way. That being said, the geek in me that writes fiction can see the brain duplication ending up with two newborns, or two individuals with bits and pieces of the established pathways of the parent.

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 14 points 1 week ago

I think that would require a grasp of how brains work that we simply don't have.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Using a highly scientific method I estimate you'd retain about half of your knowledge and skills.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

Witch! Heretic! What strange magic is this?!

[–] SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 7 points 1 week ago

We use fission+fusion! We randomly divide our genome, providing the information we have accumulate over Eons, then fuse with another to combine our knowledge. Family group animals are weird because we need to perform additional learning, vs most other animals that run mostly off instinct.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago

Splits off all the bad. Gets an evil twin.

I mean sometimes you have to let go of things too right?