this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2026
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Science Memes

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



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If you are here asking: "Is this a science meme?"

Probably, yes. We use the Dawkins definition of meme: a replicating idea, not just an image macro with a fact on it. A good post here doesn't need to teach you something. It needs to make you ask something: who, what, where, when, and especially why or how.

Science isn't a filing cabinet of facts, it's a conversation. For example, a photo of an eel or other localized wildlife counts because most people never see one, and wonder is the first step of inquiry. A car meme counts if it makes you curious about what's under the bonnet. If you want to talk about something you noticed in the world, chances are someone else wants to talk about it too.

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See the pinned paper on Shitposting as Public Pedagogy if you want the academic case for why this works.



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[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 106 points 1 month ago (4 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 month 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 month 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 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 month 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.

[–] bluestem@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

"Redwood are algae" is a similar statement to "Pterodactyls are fish" or "bees are crustaceans". Redwoods are land plants, thus are also members of Viridiplantae - the clade containing land plants and green algae. The sister taxa to Viridiplantae in clade Archaeplastida are Glaucophyta (unicellular algae), and Rhodaria (contains red algae among other things). Thus since land plants are more closely related to green algae than green algae is to red algae or glaucophytes, if we want to treat the term "algae" as a monophyletic clade, then we have to include land plants in that, which of course includes redwoods. Essentially, this framing would make the term "algae" equivalent to Archaeplastida.

Another simpler interpretation (same idea as "ducks are dinosaurs") might be that all land plants evolved from algae, and nothing can evolve out of a clade, therefore plants must be algae. My hesitation to put this first is due to the fact that I'm unsure if the most recent common ancestor of green algae and plants would itself be classified as algae - this is an exercise left to the reader.

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[–] Rudee@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

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

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

Knowledge is power.

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

french is fries which is belgian

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 3 points 1 month ago

Which is also waffles, so I only make pancakes.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 29 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 month 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 month 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 month 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 month ago

babe wake up new genre of existential crisis just dropped

[–] groet@feddit.org 21 points 1 month ago (5 children)
  • ducks are fish
  • dinosaurs are fish
  • horses are fish
  • pterodactyls are fish
  • humans are fish
[–] spacegoat@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] groet@feddit.org 8 points 1 month ago

But not all. That would be ridiculous!

[–] craftrabbit@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] Aeao@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Just a friendly reminder that, like fish, humans are coated with protective slime!

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

[–] wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I believe the pterodactyl, like most (all?) dinos descended from aquatic life forms. Dunno, though.

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

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

Pretty much. It helps if you think the word "dinosaur" has two partially overlapping meanings:

  1. Cladistic: every single descendant of the last common ancestor between the triceratops and a duck, including both. Plus pretty much any bird.
  2. Popular: a bunch of extinct animals like the T-Rex, velociraptor, triceratops, etc. Plus animals visually resembling them, regardless of cladistic classification. Notably, it does not includes Aves aka modern birds.

So for example. Turkeys would fit #1 but not #2. Depending on the person, dimetrodons and pterosaurs would fit #2, but not #1 [see note]. A T-rex would fit both.

NOTE: pterosaurs aren't from the clade Dinosauria, but from a distantly related clade called Pterosauria. Dimetrodons are synapsids so they're closer to us mammals than to Dinosauria.

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[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] crazycraw@crazypeople.online 10 points 1 month ago (1 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.

[–] crazycraw@crazypeople.online 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

also also pterodactyls aren't and dint evolve from fish. they were flying reptiles that were related to dinosaurs and crocodiles and birds, not fish.

so like facts huh

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Every tetrapod evolved from fish, including humans and pterosaurs.

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[–] Entropy_Pyre@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You’re forgetting our first land ancestor, the fish that decided to come up on land. By certain definitions, all land animals that descended from that ancestor are fish.

It’s an obscure biology joke. Doesn’t play into day-to-day conversations. It is the same logic that causes biologists to say that birds are dinosaurs though—because they descended from dinosaurs. But by the same logic, birds also evolved from lizards, and before that amphibians, and from before that fish, etc. This definition is more like putting all of life into nested boxes. Or perhaps it’s more like the saying “all tigers are felines, but not all felines are tigers”.

This definition is helpful for evolutionary biologists to talk about evolution at grand scale and how we might share certain genes with fish. But it’s admittedly not very helpful for day-to-day conversations that say humans are pretty distant from fish and don’t resemble them much at all now. (Though I admittedly love little biology facts like how our middle ear bones evolved from gills.)

Anyway. I get silly excited about this stuff. Random nerdy rant done.

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[–] nialv7@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)
[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 7 points 1 month 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 month ago (5 children)
[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 month ago

Eco-rebel, TBF. ☝🏼

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 4 points 1 month ago (6 children)

You know, I'm starting to think that our whole universe is just a cancerous 3+1D polyp on the ass of an entire, proper universe with more dimensions, mass, and energy, and less corruption.

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

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[–] Bronstein_Tardigrade@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Aren't whales related to cows?

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[–] bluegreenpurplepink@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Bill Hicks was right, "We're a virus with shoes."

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 month ago

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

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