this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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Science Memes

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On trees... (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Weren't there like, several millions of years where trees evolved but nothing had come yet to break down wood, so like, generations of dead forest just fell on top of each other until some fungus was like "that looks yummy"?

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The molecule is called lignin. And yes, there was a good 60 million years before that particular problem was cracked.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Next is plastics

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago (2 children)

First, we bio-engineer bacteria and fungi to prefer plastic as food.

Second, these bacteria become a serious endopathogen in the human body while scavenging our precious bodily microplastics.

Third, we engineer a bacteriophage to attack the bacteria in our brains.

Fourth…

The whole human comedy just keeps going and going

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The beautiful part is that when wintertime rolls around the gorillas simply freeze to death

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Exactly the reference I thought of reading this

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

I know an old woman who swallowed a fly...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

Yes, that's when coal comes from. There were giant global fire storms, because of all the dead trees and also because there was more oxygen. The oxygen also caused insects to become gigantic. They don't have lungs, just random holes in their body so the airs oxygen content limits their size.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

we're living through a similar period but with plastics :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's the circle of life. Plastics are a petrochemical, and those trees created our coal.

Now plastics weren't technically evolved (unless you count human evolution)...but at least we got CRISPR to maybe speed things along with "evolving" a plastics predator.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

i dont really know why human activity should be special. it's evolved creatures doing weird shit, producing (temporarily?) undigestible stuff. there's no rule saying you cant have the production outside your body, it's just customary to use organs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Yes, that is how we got coal.