this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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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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[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Another big part of it is that if the big bang happened evenly then galaxies and other objects should be spinning in random directions. So far that's not what's been observed. There seems to be a preferred direction everything spins in.

[–] radioactivefunguy@piefed.ca 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The direction the black hole "toilet" flushes as it sucks stuff in and smashes it against each other?

Maybe there's a parallel universe called Astraliastra where the black hole flushes the other direction!

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's amazing to me that an episode of the Simpsons like 30 years ago created such a widely believed completely made up fact.

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

That fact wasn't as cromulent as they made it out to be.

ETA: also, the myth about birds exploding by eating rice. An entire generation used bubbles at their weddings instead, in part because Lisa didn't fact-check a myth. (Not complaining about the result though: bubbles are lovely floating orbs of happiness, whereas thrown rice is a messy waste of food.)

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The bird myth predates the Simpsons though. I did hear it was greatly spread by all the churches\wedding venues because they all didn't want to keep cleaning up all the rice.

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

For sure, Lisa doesn't tend to make up such ideas whole-cloth. It was just the first place I heard the myth and I remember kids at school spreading it after that episode. So it definitely spread the idea.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There seems to be a preferred direction everything spins in.

I'm sorry but i think that's just not true?

Inside the solar system, yes, planets more or less spin around the same axis than the whole solar system does.

But the axis of the solar system and of the whole milky way are like 63° towards each other. Source So, not the same direction at all.

[–] qqq@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I don't think they meant everything literally goes in the same direction, but more like what is discussed here https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-inside-a-black-hole/ (this article was shared elsewhere in this post)