this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 3 points 6 days ago

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

[–] qualia@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Humans share a common ancestor with tardigrades.

[–] x0x7@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (1 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.

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 3 points 6 days ago

Meat tubes.

[–] Bourff@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago

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

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 points 6 days ago

Agent Smith was... Right?

[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 105 points 1 week 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 55 points 1 week 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 16 points 1 week 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 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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

[–] BurgerBaron@quokk.au 5 points 1 week ago

The latest puzzle: what the viroids doin' in our guts? Nobody knows, we are only just realised they are widespread and not exclusive to flowers or whatever Anton told me. Tiny simple RNA smudges that are too simple to even qualify as a virus.

I feel like they're as close to abiogenesis as we'll ever get, with these living fossils.

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[–] Danarchy@lemmy.nz 44 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 15 points 1 week ago

Knowledge is power.

[–] enbiousenvy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

french is fries which is belgian

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 2 points 6 days ago

Which is also waffles, so I only make pancakes.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 29 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 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. It could explain why some people suffer emotional distress while under antibiotics (I get severe depression).

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 25 points 1 week ago (4 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.

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[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 16 points 1 week 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 8 points 1 week 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

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 week ago

babe wake up new genre of existential crisis just dropped

[–] groet@feddit.org 21 points 1 week ago (5 children)
  • ducks are fish
  • dinosaurs are fish
  • horses are fish
  • pterodactyls are fish
  • humans are fish
[–] OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 1 points 6 days ago

Lobe finned, not ray.

[–] spacegoat@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] groet@feddit.org 8 points 1 week ago

But not all. That would be ridiculous!

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[–] jaded_genie@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 week 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 1 points 6 days ago

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

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[–] iilwl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 week 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 10 points 1 week 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?

[–] iilwl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 week ago

I'm honestly surprised this isn't better understood in this community, at least as an approach to the tree of life system of classification, with or without its merits. I didn't go to college and went to public school that suppressed science education, but this was how I came to understand evolution and that all types of life had a universal common ancestor.

I'm not speaking to the accuracy of the meme, and the science community at large has its criticisms of cladistics, but I'm not sure I would classify this as a problem of biology or language, or a problem at all. It is the most common method of evolutionary classification at this time.

Keep in mind I'm a blue collar worker on my lunch break and not a scientist nor college educated. I just like to learn in my free time about a bunch of stuff.

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[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] crazycraw@crazypeople.online 10 points 1 week 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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[–] nialv7@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)
[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 7 points 1 week ago

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a dinosaur.

[–] mrmisses@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (11 children)
[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

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

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Careful you don’t get banned for being an eco fascist. 🫣

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[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

"Pterodactyls are fish" seems disingenuous to insert when two of the previous ones are about pedantic taxonomy facts (which are true). "Fish" are paraphyletic and thus not an actual taxon, but as a practical group, it's all non-tetrapod vertebrates – and order Pterosauria are decidedly tetrapods.

It's trying to be pedantic in a cheeky way but just ends up being wrong.

[–] bisby@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I find pedants are often wrong or completely missing the point.

Sometimes it triggers a fun discussion. and sometimes it's just tedious.

(ghoti could never be pronounced like "fish" because "gh" only sounds like an F near the end of a word after au or ou, but ghoti is at least an interesting way to bring up the topic of weird inconsistencies of the english language, even if it's wrong)

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

My favorite way to slap an English speaker in the face with the silly irregularities of English pronunciation is to show them the 1920 poem The Chaos.

[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

For those like me that never even tried to pronounce english correctly and consequently can't grasp the actual "chaos" hidden in that poem: The chaos (YT)

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