this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
794 points (98.9% liked)

Comic Strips

23499 readers
1560 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

Rules
  1. πŸ˜‡ Be Nice!

    • Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly.
  2. 🏘️ Community Standards

    • Comics should be a full story, from start to finish, in one post.
    • Posts should be safe and enjoyable by the majority of community members, both here on lemmy.world and other instances.
    • Any comic that would qualify as raunchy, lewd, or otherwise draw unwanted attention by nosy coworkers, spouses, or family members should be tagged as NSFW.
    • Moderators have final say on what and what does not qualify as appropriate. Use common sense, and if need be, err on the side of caution.
  3. 🧬 Keep it Real

    • Comics should be made and posted by real human beans, not by automated means like bots or AI. This is not the community for that sort of thing.
  4. πŸ“½οΈ Credit Where Credit is Due

    • Comics should include the original attribution to the artist(s) involved, and be unmodified. Bonus points if you include a link back to their website. When in doubt, use a reverse image search to try to find the original version. Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanently banned from posting.
    • Attributions include, but are not limited to, watermarks, links, or other text or imagery that artists add to their comics to use for identification purposes. If you find a comic without any such markings, it would be a good idea to see if you can find an original version. If one cannot be found, say so and ask the community for help!
  5. πŸ“‹ Post Formatting

    • Post an image, gallery, or link to a specific comic hosted on another site; e.g., the author's website.
    • Meta posts about the community should be tagged with [Meta] either at the beginning or the end of the post title.
    • When linking to a comic hosted on another site, ensure the link is to the comic itself and not just to the website; e.g.,
      βœ… Correct: https://xkcd.com/386/
      ❌ Incorrect: https://xkcd.com/
  6. πŸ“¬ Post Frequency/SPAM

    • Each user (regardless of instance) may post up to five (5 πŸ–) comics a day. This can be any combination of personal comics you have written yourself, or other author's comics. Any comics exceeding five (5 πŸ–) will be removed.
  7. πŸ΄β€β˜ οΈ Internationalization (i18n)

    • Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
      SΓ­, por favor [Spanish/EspaΓ±ol]
  8. 🍿 Moderation

    • We are human, just like most everybody else on Lemmy. If you feel a moderation decision was made in error, you are welcome to reach out to anybody on the moderation team for clarification. Keep in mind that moderation decisions may be final.
    • When reporting posts and/or comments, quote which rule is being broken, and why you feel it broke the rules.
Banned Artists

The following artists are banned from the community.

  1. Jago
  2. Stonetoss

It should be noted that when you make reports, it is your responsibility to provide rational reasoning why something should be removed. Saying it simply breaks community rules is not always good enough.

Web Accessibility

Note: This is not a rule, but a helpful suggestion.

When posting images, you should strive to add alt-text for screen readers to use to describe the image you're posting:

Another helpful thing to do is to provide a transcription of the text in your images, as well as brief descriptions of what's going on. (example)

Web of Links

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 20 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] crawancon@lemm.ee 40 points 2 years ago (2 children)

mmm their unevolved blood is $$$$$

[–] VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I wonder if it's different blood base makes it less susceptible to dna mutations ?

[–] LeadEyes@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

What it really meant when people talk about living fossils etc is that the morphology of the creature has changed very little. Genetically and on a cellular level there would definitely be a lot of changes from their earlier forms millions of years ago. DNA just doesn't stick around for more than a couple hundred thousand years maximum it seems so it's difficult for us to chart those changes that aren't visible in morphology. Creatures that seem to not change drastically in such long scale time usually have niches and environments that haven't changed drastically in their existence.

[–] Beryl@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

Well put. Although on the outside, a creature may seem not to have changed in any recognizable way, mutations nevertheless accumulated in its DNA with each generation. That's why we probably should avoid to use the term living fossil.

[–] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago

The real blue bloods

[–] Vorticity@lemmy.world 26 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Does anyone know of a good /r/askscience-like community on Lemmy? I've got lots of questions about horseshoe crabs.

I've never read much about horseshoe crabs before. I knew they were interesting, but they're fascinating! Here's a good summary of some of what we know about them: https://www.earthdate.org/episodes/horseshoe-crabs-living-fossils

Interestingly, because their environment is replete with bacteria and their circulatory system makes them particularly prone to infection, they have developed a zero-tolerance immune system. It kills anything it finds that is abnormal.

I wonder how much impact their immune system has on their stagnant evolution. Does killing all intruders reduce the likelihood of mutations by disallowing viruses and the mutations that they bring? Does their immune system know what their DNA should look like and immediately kill any mutations that it finds?

[–] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago

I can't speak to quality but

!askscience@lemmy.world

[–] kurwa@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I ain't no biologist or anything, but I'm not sure viruses introduce mutations that would be passed along into offspring. Mutations occur at birth, and the way they go about becoming prominent is through natural selection.

You could possibly say that any horseshoe crabs that mutate at birth into not having their strong immune system would die off and not get any good chances to reproduce enough to evolve.

[–] Vorticity@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago
[–] nonfuinoncuro@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago

I'm guessing it's more of the latter. I really only know about human animals, but we probably make about 50-100 cancerous cells daily (I'm making up the number). Any one of those can become real Cancer^TM if left alone, but our immune system is so efficient at finding and killing these that cancers really only succeed once they have enough good camouflage to masquerade as normal non cancer cells and fool the immune system until it's too late. That's why transplant patients and people with autoimmune diseases are at higher risk of cancer (since they are on immunosuppressants) and boosting the immune system is an effective anti cancer therapy.

That being said honestly I doubt the immune system is hunting down tiny mutations in eggs/sperm or committing entire animal-level suicide after they are successfully fertilized but it's just that it's a harsh environment and they are perfectly evolved to survive there. Any deviation from that perfect form is just so much less fit for survival that their genes never get passed on. And other animals will eventually just become crabs. Like sharks. Every ocean will evolve crabs and sharks.

[–] LazyKatze 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The dna is not stagnated and neither is the evolution. Check out this video for more info

https://youtu.be/23thr68Xj-c

[–] Vorticity@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Thank you, this was really interesting. I was trying to look up more information on "stabilimorphs" but google pulls up nothing on the term. I'm wondering what causes them to continue mutating in such a stable way. Are they simply that well adapted that they've fallen into a stable configuration that has no instability in any of the many dimensions available or is there something else that is maintaining their physical configuration while mutations continue to occur?

The eye thing is the coolest aspect of this critters IMHO. They have lots of different kinds of eyes, and even that tail is sort of one big eye, covered with photoreceptors. Those guys are damn good at slithering around in the mud and finding food.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] TheRealLinga@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago

I always smile when I see this guy! He was great in Star Trek too

[–] federalreverse@feddit.de 17 points 2 years ago
[–] Wytch@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] Molten_Moron@lemmings.world 1 points 2 years ago

Evolution in a nutshell

[–] LazyKatze 1 points 2 years ago

Hm not really what is happening... Evolution hasn't stagnated

https://youtu.be/23thr68Xj-c