this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] Norn@lemmy.zip 76 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Regardless of topic, I can relate to the need to look something up in the middle of the night for peace of mind.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 1 month ago (2 children)

i looked up the number of deaths during the napoleonic wars like yesterday

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

eh idk, i had difficulty finding exact numbers. apparently the napoleonic wars did have wide consequences but not so much because of the number of people that died in them but because they basically pushed very severely the modernization of all states in europe, which then caused a whole lot of things to happen rather quickly.

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 5 points 1 month ago

The bare necessities of knowledge for sound sleep.

[–] 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

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] BucketBong@p.hobo.social 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] BucketBong@p.hobo.social 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm giving her all she's got Captain!

[–] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Stupid spaceship, can't even reach warp 11 🙄

[–] BucketBong@p.hobo.social 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Do you want to be transformed into a large alien salamander?

[–] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

*and have hot large alien salamander sex with your captain?

[–] BucketBong@p.hobo.social 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I just noticed, the only times Janeway hooks up with someone is as an alien salamander and with a hologram, no wonder she was ready to fight anyone.

[–] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago

That, AND she was always low on coffee.

[–] bert_brause@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago (3 children)

what? Sorry, what does it mean? I cheated my way trough computer science - archeology / biology are not my expertise.

[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 40 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I think it means we don't know what the ancestors of those plants are/what they evolved from. They just kinda showed up in the fossil record.

[–] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 28 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Which, tbf, it's a miracle enough of the fossil record exists as is. I'm sure there was a LOT that was lost to the sands of time

[–] HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Iirc it's reckoned most species likely aren't known about because most places weren't conducive to fossilisation

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

ehh, modern biology doesn't construct evolutionary history from fossil records, but from genetic similarities.

[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's impossible to compare genetics from fossils and we can't study ancient long dead species besides fossil records for the most part.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de -2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

yeah that's not what i meant. phylogenetic trees are constructed by considering the genetics of recent (living) species, not from fossils.

[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And this post is about ancestors of ferns which are unknown so I'm not sure what are you suggesting

[–] spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 3 points 1 month ago
[–] F_State@midwest.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Relatively few lifeforms end up fossilizing and then some of those fossils later get eroded. The percentage that make it to the present is low.

[–] dudinax@programming.dev 4 points 1 month ago

I'm no paleontologist but it seems like our total knowledge of certain eras comes from a few river banks collapsing on whatever lived there. That's not going to be a great representation of all life at that time.

[–] lemonskate@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That the fossil record is incomplete

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Your mom's record is incomplete

[–] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 2 points 1 month ago

But she's working on it...

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Imagine you are trying to infer the structure of a tree by only know the positions of its leaves. Now imagine doing the same, but only 1/100 of the leaves are above ground.

It's only a small fraction living organisms which remain alive today. Most species and families which have ever been are extinct. And most are so old we could never do DNA work on them. Among the living, we can do some good DNA work and that's made a huge difference. But then go back far enough and there are just massive nonconformities.

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

“I can’t get… no… sleeeeep…”

techno music

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

I usually schedule it to tommorrow and the forget it.