Behold, a feathered biped
where's my damn plume
Submitted 2 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/85d0f54b-e050-46dc-a2c0-f2a908f0a65c.png
Comments
rockerface@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Thteven@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Plato is gonna be fuckin pissed
HawlSera@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Between this, my stripes, and my tail… all things I have genes for, but no activation…
I’m kinda pissed, being human could be far less cringe
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Humans do have stripes but we ourselves can’t see them.
Look up Blaschko lines
MBM@lemmings.world 2 months ago
Unless you have the right skin condition I don’t think they’re visible in any wavelength
ashley0_0@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
isn’t that only true for XX chromosome people?
ieatpwns@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m good on the feathers I read the goosebumps book about learning to fly and it gave me a preview of my trypophobia when R.L. Stine described the feathers growing out of the main characters skin
VanillerGoriller@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I’ll hold off too because some feathers grow straight from the bones. Eek
Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I on the other hand am all that is man and will be taking the feathers because I want to look fabulous
IMongoose@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Huh? I just read this book and that was not in there. The kids just drank a potion and then could fly, there was no outward difference to them. Maybe you are mixing up a different one, like the chicken one? We just started that so idk how it goes. The cover has the girl as a chicken though.
ieatpwns@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Ahh I checked the synopsis and you’re right I definitely got it mixed up with another. I need to find it now.
Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
My guess is they mean we have the genes to encode the proteins, since we have similar keratinized tissues like hair and nails. But probably not the hox genes to encode the structure
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Well then put the box genes in me so I can have a plume
Skullgrid@lemmy.world 2 months ago
MF walking one way into getting a pile of teratomas
ummthatguy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
There’s certainly something stunning and wonderful in that picture all right
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I also have a thing for short guys in glasses!
superkret@feddit.org 2 months ago
Her shoes
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
This sounds like a fun PhD project
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 months ago
No funding. Less fun
python@programming.dev 2 months ago
I want the damn feathers for the social aspect! If we were allowed to preen each other, the world would be a better place!
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
we are allowed to preen each other, just start helping your friends and family with their haircuts
TheDoctor@hexbear.net 2 months ago
TIL evolution is bad at deleting legacy code
Sundial@lemm.ee 2 months ago
We just comment it out in case we ever need it again.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 2 months ago
While we’re on the topic, we all have very slightly webbed digits, multiple involuntary reflexes for when we get wet, and a nasal/respiratory system that is (partially) adapted to swimming. I wonder how far our DNA could be pushed to pad out what was started here?
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Our throat region seems poorly thought out. As somebody said recently, tube you shove food in or you die is right next to tube you must never block with food or you die.
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
The fact that billions of us still get that right hundreds of times a day is honestly pretty fucking insane
Lighttrails@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Quick someone get CRSIPR therapy
kryptonidas@lemmings.world 2 months ago
What does that even mean, you have like “four letters” and dna strands of millions long. Like how selective do you have to be. I’m sure you can basically write anything that way.
Are there entire chunks that are inactive that would give feathers, that at some point have feathers to our ancestors?
Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
All things DNA is full of code that doesn’t get activated and is just passed on anyways
Gene expression is what they mean by “activated”
Basically think of it like having a library of instruction books and only grabbing a few of them to do the project that needs done.
pancake@lemmygrad.ml 2 months ago
DNA contains coding and control regions. Changes to the coding regions are rare, most of the evolutionary stuff is happening within those control regions instead. Mutations there are more likely to result in interesting effects by affecting the way genes activate and interact, while the coding regions do the heavy lifting.
Losing some feature could be as simple as a mutation that permanently switches off the control region of a gene, even if the gene itself and the interactions formerly coded around it still work. Over time, those accumulate mutations and degrade, since they are not useful and therefore evolution doesn’t preserve them, but they are still there. For example, we have an inactivated gene that used to make an enzyme that would break down uric acid. So we get gout, but our ancestors didn’t.
psud@aussie.zone 2 months ago
I recall that scientists reactivated chicken genes for teeth and grew a toothed chook
flora_explora@beehaw.org 2 months ago
I agree, this seems pretty misleading. And are there any other feathered animals other than on the dinosaur branch? Because if not, how should the feather DNA even end up in mammalian DNA?? Or maybe feathers are produced by very common differently used genes? But in this case this would be even more nonsensical…
MashedHobbits@lemy.lol 2 months ago
I’ll settle for hair regrowth.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 2 months ago
OTOH it would be kind of cool to look like the hawk man on the old Buck Rogers tv show.
Wofls@feddit.org 2 months ago
Now go into a forrest with flint and boom
infinite ammo
swab148@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Just need two chickens, a dispenser, and a redstone clock for infinite chickens
BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Is this true ? It doesn’t feel true with my current knowledge.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 2 months ago
DNA powers - ACTIVATE!!!
Cruxifux@feddit.nl 2 months ago
If people had wings and could fly it would be considered exercise and nobody would do it.
RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Americans wouldn’t do it, the rest of the world would
frickineh@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I was about to be offended and then I remembered how I got out of breath walking up the stairs this morning. (To be fair, I’m anemic af and almost certainly have a touch of long covid, but still.)
tdawg@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Why would I fly for twenty minutes when I can drive for an hour 🙄
Cruxifux@feddit.nl 2 months ago
Yes. Burgerlanders are very averse to any level of self improvement that might be difficult. I blame the car culture propaganda more than I blame the people though.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Please stop bad-mouthing Americans, it’s just self loathing at this point. It can’t be that black and white.
TheDoctor@hexbear.net 2 months ago
Yeah one time I traveled to Europe and everyone was just running everywhere. Very efficient.
Akasazh@feddit.nl 2 months ago
If you look at birds like the kakapo, they would’ve had flight in the evolutionary past, but evolved out of it due to lack of predatory threat.
This can be part of Island syndrome, where the dodo also suffered from, till sailors came around and found out they were tasty.
callyral@pawb.social 2 months ago
We’d end up making flying cars so we wouldn’t have to fly ourselves…
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
this is literally how it works for birds, that’s why you see especially pidgeons and corvids walking so often, they just don’t need to fly a lot so they simply walk.
Dasus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That can be dangerous in the long term.
Mitchell and Webb - Flightless birds