this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
862 points (97.5% liked)

Science Memes

10842 readers
2270 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.


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 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 97 points 7 months ago (2 children)

They dont. It just happens that natural selection favored flowers that looked vaguely bird like and over time, flowers that looked more and more like a bird outcompeted the ones that looked less like one.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 7 months ago (2 children)

What's funny is how absurd this is. Most flowers don't look like birds and they're fine.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago (3 children)

This has nothing to do with natural selection. It's just a coincidence that the buds very shortly and from a specific angle vaguely look like birds.

Most of the images shared are probably photoshopped to enhance the effect too.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 7 months ago (1 children)

looks at user name

Sounds like something a BIRD would say!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Squaaawk, you got me!

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (4 children)

It's about tiny percents.

A bird will land on a flower.

A bird will not land on a bird.

So every one in a million time a bird mistakes a flower for a bird, that's a flower that survives.

All you have to do is wait a couple million years for the odds to turn in the bird flower's favor.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Right, but what about the mimic plant? It mimicks whatever plant is near it. And it can mimic plastic plants. https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2022/11/30/23473062/plant-mimicry-boquila-trifoliolata

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 56 points 7 months ago

"Appear to look like"...

I wonder what they look like if you manage to ignore the appearances.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 7 months ago (3 children)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 36 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Animals are something plants invented to help spread their seeds around.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Know what's wild? For millions of years nothing around ate trees, so when a tree grew and died and fell it was permanently there because there was no rot. Which is how we got petrified forests.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

From my readings, I don't think this is the case. Lignin degradation evolved rapidly with terrestrial plants. Coal and petrified wood is more due to geological events and swamps for example. Evolving ligninases is trivial for bacteria and fungi.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Life in general is most likely something the universe invented to speed up entropy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Life is a natural part of entropy for sure.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Why do plants know how birds look

The potatoes told them. (Potatoes have eyes)

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 months ago (1 children)

More evidence birds aren't real

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

The evidence is building, I can no longer deny

[–] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago (2 children)

There are a lot of weird flowers out there

Evolution is wonderfull

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

The fruit is, but not the plant, scientific name: Tetrastigma voinieranum, common names: Chestnut Vine, Lizard Vine, Wild Grape

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

My aunt had one of these but she watered it too much and it drowned. lmao

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (4 children)

I rewatched Annihilation recently. That fucking bear scene still haunts me. Great film.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

droning sounds intensify

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Doesn't this imply that the flower is polinated by bird cocks. Think about it a bird fucks one flower or starts to before realizing, and then later he fucks annother flower thus spreading the pollen of the first flower.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

No, it just implies that it was adaptive to look like a bird.

It could be for any number of reasons, including because aliens exist and years ago they were like "let's screw up all the plants in this area for generations" until the leader's kid saw one that kind of looked like little birds and threw themselves in front of it and said "wait, no, spare this one."

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

How do you know it's not a bird trying to look like a plant? Y'know to evade predators and all...

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Why are people so unfathomably dumb, like, I'm afraid.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, some people can't even recognize a joke.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Right, anytime anyone fucks up it's sarcasm, anytime anyone is dumb, it's a joke, nothing is real, everything is a cake.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

i like cake

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

“Science memes”

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 35 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

People don't get the timescale of an evolutionary feature like this. And how long it was only kinda bird like.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Intuitively understanstanding evolution is something most people dont need so i cant really fault people for it. But yeah either trolling or actually stupid who knows.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I do wish that the personification of evolution wasn't such a thing. People so often attribute reasoning or intention to the process, when there is no such thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Wait until they advance and start thinking about things like, how did plants find out what bees like to eat. This will spook them to mind-blown town.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Intuitively understanstanding evolution is something most people dont need so i cant really fault people for it.

LOL, how meta ("people haven't evolved to understand evolution").

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

There are plants that cam see, so you are rightly afraid.

load more comments
view more: next ›