this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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Science Memes

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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.



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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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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 47 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

This isn't really a mystery. We know the fossil record is incomplete, something like 99% of species are almost certainly not represented in the fossil record and what is present will massively be biased towards marine life.

Plants don't fossilize particularly well anyways so it's not surprising that we don't have records for these organisms. The fact that we have records for the existence of ferns at all is probably evidence of them suddenly becoming massively prolific (I wonder if some major environmental change occurred around that time ☄️) rather than them springing out a thin air.

[–] NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They were dropped off by aliens. The very same ones who returned millions of years later to build us pyramids. It’s a very philanthropic extra-terrestrial community

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

Until they flatten all the buildings and make the survivors fight through a murder dungeon for their entertainment