• Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 hours ago

    My guess is they mean we have the genes to encode the proteins, since we have similar keratinized tissues like hair and nails. But probably not the hox genes to encode the structure

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    8 hours ago

    Between this, my stripes, and my tail… all things I have genes for, but no activation…

    I’m kinda pissed, being human could be far less cringe

  • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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    15 hours ago

    If people had wings and could fly it would be considered exercise and nobody would do it.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      3 hours ago

      If you look at birds like the kakapo, they would’ve had flight in the evolutionary past, but evolved out of it due to lack of predatory threat.

      This can be part of Island syndrome, where the dodo also suffered from, till sailors came around and found out they were tasty.

      • frickineh@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        I was about to be offended and then I remembered how I got out of breath walking up the stairs this morning. (To be fair, I’m anemic af and almost certainly have a touch of long covid, but still.)

        • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
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          12 hours ago

          There’s just something about stairs that gets me. I can run a sub hour 10k, hike 15+ miles a day, and my resting heart rate is in the 50s, but stairs always get me winded.

          • Klaymore@sh.itjust.works
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            12 hours ago

            My french teacher in high school said that everyone gets winded going up stairs, cause people who are fitter walk up the steps faster

            • flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              9 hours ago

              This just solved it for me. That is exactly it. I’ve been angry at stairs my whole life and now I realize it’s because I go up them as fast as I walk- which is considerably faster than most people I know.

      • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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        15 hours ago

        Yes. Burgerlanders are very averse to any level of self improvement that might be difficult. I blame the car culture propaganda more than I blame the people though.

        • Flyberius [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          8 hours ago

          I know I’m China brained, but go to a park in China and you’ll have a hard time walking the paths because of the number of people running, and the squares will be filled with people paying badminton and dancing.

          It shamed me into exercising regularly.

      • SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml
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        11 hours ago

        Please stop bad-mouthing Americans, it’s just self loathing at this point. It cannot be that black and white.

  • ieatpwns@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    I’m good on the feathers I read the goosebumps book about learning to fly and it gave me a preview of my trypophobia when R.L. Stine described the feathers growing out of the main characters skin

    ETA: it was “chicken chicken” not “how I learned to fly”

    • IMongoose@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Huh? I just read this book and that was not in there. The kids just drank a potion and then could fly, there was no outward difference to them. Maybe you are mixing up a different one, like the chicken one? We just started that so idk how it goes. The cover has the girl as a chicken though.

      • ieatpwns@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        Ahh I checked the synopsis and you’re right I definitely got it mixed up with another. I need to find it now.

        ETA:Definitely the chicken one jeez it just gave me goosebumps

  • Python@programming.dev
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    16 hours ago

    I want the damn feathers for the social aspect! If we were allowed to preen each other, the world would be a better place!

  • kryptonidas@lemmings.world
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    14 hours ago

    What does that even mean, you have like “four letters” and dna strands of millions long. Like how selective do you have to be. I’m sure you can basically write anything that way.

    Are there entire chunks that are inactive that would give feathers, that at some point gave feathers to our ancestors?

    • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      14 hours ago

      All things DNA is full of code that doesn’t get activated and is just passed on anyways

      Gene expression is what they mean by “activated”

      Basically think of it like having a library of instruction books and only grabbing a few of them to do the project that needs done.

    • pancake@lemmygrad.ml
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      14 hours ago

      DNA contains coding and control regions. Changes to the coding regions are rare, most of the evolutionary stuff is happening within those control regions instead. Mutations there are more likely to result in interesting effects by affecting the way genes activate and interact, while the coding regions do the heavy lifting.

      Losing some feature could be as simple as a mutation that permanently switches off the control region of a gene, even if the gene itself and the interactions formerly coded around it still work. Over time, those accumulate mutations and degrade, since they are not useful and therefore evolution doesn’t preserve them, but they are still there. For example, we have an inactivated gene that used to make an enzyme that would break down uric acid. So we get gout, but our ancestors didn’t.

    • psud@aussie.zone
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      10 hours ago

      I recall that scientists reactivated chicken genes for teeth and grew a toothed chook

    • flora_explora@beehaw.org
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      14 hours ago

      I agree, this seems pretty misleading. And are there any other feathered animals other than on the dinosaur branch? Because if not, how should the feather DNA even end up in mammalian DNA?? Or maybe feathers are produced by very common differently used genes? But in this case this would be even more nonsensical…

    • swab148@lemm.ee
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      5 hours ago

      Just need two chickens, a dispenser, and a redstone clock for infinite chickens