this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world 13 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Birds are considered to be dinosaurs. Birds exist now. We are finding dinosaur fossils now.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago

That's what the XKCD that was posted says. Mostly.

[–] nothacking@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 3 hours ago (2 children)
[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

The popup text on that one is quite funny.

[–] ClanOfTheOcho@lemmy.world 3 points 48 minutes ago (1 children)

Any idea how to access the pop-up text on a phone?

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 points 46 minutes ago

On my android, I just long press on the image, and it appears at the top of the popup menu

[–] Akasazh@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago

There's always a relevant xkcd

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 8 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Which makes me ask, why were mammals able to evolve to produce an apex predator that relies on it's inventiveness (Humans) in quite a short time, but no similar "dinosaur" got to that point in a much longer period?

We're searching planets for signs of life as a pre-cursor to intelligent life, but there's no guarantee that life will evolve in the same direction as ours.

[–] fossilesque@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 38 minutes ago

Now you get it. :)

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Corvids and psittacines display human child level intelligence. They use tools. They recognize other people. Hell the psittacines can mimic speech.

I personally suspect it's a matter of energy density. Birds have to use almost all of their available calories on flying. Doesn't leave a lot of energy left over for a massively hungry brain. No clue what's holding back penguins, emus, and cassowaries.

[–] exasperation@lemm.ee 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Birds have to use almost all of their available calories on flying.

But flying is quite energy efficient as a method of getting from point A to point B. That's why flying insects and birds have had such evolutionary success with that strategy.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Is it though? They have to eat an absolute ton relative to their own mass. At least all the birds I've ever interacted with were constantly eating, even when they mostly didn't bother flying. Chicken soccer is what I called feeding the chickens. No patience whatsoever.

My mother used to say that her sons eat like birds, a peck at a time, and twice our own body weight daily.

While we humans eat a lot, something like 50% of our calories are going to our brains. I'm not sure most birds could actually increase their caloric intake enough to be able to evolve bigger brains than they already have. Maybe if we designed them some super foods, but that seems to be cheating, to me.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 2 points 47 minutes ago

...something like 50% of our calories are going to our brains.

Dang, I'll have to remember this next time my ADHD pushes me to hyperfocus and I risk skipping meals again. O.O

[–] borokov@lemmy.world 15 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Also, water you are drinking has probably been peed by dinosaure. Several time. But probably not peed by a human.

[–] greenhorn@lemm.ee 4 points 1 hour ago

Second relevant xkcd of the comments https://what-if.xkcd.com/74/

[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 7 points 5 hours ago

guzzles water

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 120 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

There are fossilized humans. Fossilization really doesn't take that much time, geologically speaking; it just requires very specific conditions.

[–] obstbert@feddit.org 12 points 9 hours ago

Also makes you wonder what fossils they mean, of the same species or then already extinct ones.

Because according to a quick Wikipedia search the oldest hominid fossils (?) are something like 7 millions years old

That's much much shorter than dinosaurs where around but hey " hominins are around long enough to unearth hominin fossils"!

[–] Copythis@lemmy.world 16 points 13 hours ago (4 children)

About how much time are we talkin here?

[–] psud@aussie.zone 6 points 7 hours ago

Human species before H. Sapiens

[–] Geobloke@lemm.ee 21 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] meep_launcher@lemm.ee 9 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
[–] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Where are the other drugs going?

[–] sheogorath@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I don’t know, swear to God

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

For some reason, I don't entirely believe you. Might be the whole God of Madness thing. You turning back into Jyggalag anytime soon? I'd like to know when to short the shit out of the entire market.

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 7 points 11 hours ago

I know there's some animal fossils in New Zealand that date back to its colonization by the ancestors of the Maori, so about the 1400s. Though I don't know if they are partially or fully fossilized.

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[–] Mr_Fish@lemmy.world 113 points 16 hours ago (6 children)

It is more chronologically accurate to show a t-rex being hit by a car than it is to show a t-rex eating a stegosaurus

[–] ziggurat@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago

You made me scroll up to the picture again, looking for a T-Rex or a car

[–] Zzyzx@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 8 hours ago

And people mocked me for my human-tyrannosaur slashfic on ao3. Well, who's laughing now?

[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 45 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)

I said I'm sorry. But if you're going to let your T-Rex out at night you should at least put a reflective collar on it.

[–] Frozengyro@lemmy.world 25 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Hi, I was just calling because I live down the street from you, and your daughter come to my house today and she kick my t-rex.

Your daughter come to my house today, And she come on my property and then she kick my t-rex. And now my t-rex needs operation.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 25 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

How cruel.

My T-Rex ist mostly armless

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[–] LeninsOvaries@lemmy.cafe 5 points 10 hours ago

I don't remember that episode of the Flintstones

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[–] FoD@startrek.website 65 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

This meme made me gasp loud enough that my girlfriend was worried something was wrong.

Then I had to explain that I'm 41 years old and was just shocked by a dinosaur fact.

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 11 points 11 hours ago

Forty-one?! You're practically a fossil!

[–] fossilesque@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (3 children)

To be fair, things can fossilise very quickly given ideal conditions. Still dinosaurs reigned for a lot more time than mammals and frankly nature is still feeling the loss in certain ways.

https://www.americanforests.org/article/the-trees-that-miss-the-mammoths/

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 114 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

This is only mind blowing because popular media likes to show every dinosaur at once. Like there's a lot of things depicting stegosaurus fighting T-Rex; but these animals never would have met. They're from entirely different periods.

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 87 points 17 hours ago (6 children)

How dare you suggest DinoTrux lied to us!!!

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[–] negativenull@lemmy.world 39 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (11 children)

We live closer to the time of T-Rex than T-Rex lived to the time of Stegosaurus.

67 million years separate us from T-Rex.
83 million years separate T-Rex from Stegosaurus. (150 million years between us and Stegosaurus)

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