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Cake day: February 8th, 2024

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  • So do I understand correctly that a certain hox gene is activated in basically all cells which are in the “domain” of a certain vertebrae and they all activate some subset of homeobox genes which in combination with the original hox gene cause them to start turning into all the different parts associated with that vertebrae (so organs and other structures)?

    Would we then need an entirely new hox gene to produce even a single gill? (I know you basically just laid out most of a response to this question.) Because I would assume although the exact point at which the development of our arms and legs begins is part of the whole hox gene “superstructure”, but couldn’t we ‘basically just’ highjack this same system and duplicate this gene to produce at least a single gill in the region where the current hox gene for our neck is expressed?

    Long story short: what is the biggest reason why we can’t just hack into a later part of the sequence and continue on from there with what you said?

    Or would your proposed plan also just end up like this in the final product and you laid it out like this because it’s already the most viable route into this mess? 😅


  • And that’s the thing:

    Assuming it did, you couldn’t see it approach until it hit you because it’s moving at the speed of light! It could also have happened, but just super far away such that it will never reach us due to expansion between its origin point and us being faster than c!

    Also just because the universe is frickin old doesn’t mean it is statistically bound to have happened. There are plenty of ways of making it even more astronomically unlikely but still possible…




  • Hmm but couldn’t we then also go even further and assume an idealized muscle car with an effective transmission to its wheels of 1:1 running at its optimal torque vs speed point and thus with a given speed of its wheels rotation for a given time?

    Aka convert energy into miles (traveled) or something (with the choice of motor and wheel diameter and everything else standardized ofc.)?



  • The thing is Randall already kind of did something like this in his “What-if?” which talked about a diamond meteor hitting the earth…

    And basically it boils down to: Either Galileo/Newton/whoever was the smart fuck that discovered it was right and the meteor would only create a crater roughly as deep as it was itself. (This if it could touch the core it would be at least the same size as the earth and the picture would look different)

    Or it would be going fast enough to ignore most of all that classical physics stuff, phase through most solid material and blow apart every piece of the earth because it would have enough energy to completely overcome the gravitational force holding everything to everything else here on earth.

    (Now granted, those were the two extremes and there might just be a perfect balance in between, but I’m sure as hell not going to look for it! At the very least because getting funding for the experiments is seriously difficult for some reason…)







  • reinei@lemmy.worldtoScience Memes@mander.xyzSeconds
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    2 months ago

    Just as particle physicists measure everything in energy (eV to be precise…)

    Mass? eV Energy? eV Distance? 1/eV Time? Guess what: 1/eV as well! This also means velocity has unit 1…

    And the worst part: it turns out to be extremely useful!