this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2025
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One of our bioinformatics has a sign at his desk that says "taxonomy is a social construct".
Conservatives hate this one trick!
(The trick: literally everything in all aspects of reality, from the larges to smallest scales to every branch of life and consciousness is a motherfucking SPECTRUM. No hard lines. Nothing is solid. Not even the matter you're standing or sitting on.)
"Yah but nuance is so hard! It's so much easier to just hate everything I don't understand"
“taxonomy is a social construct”
i mean for bacteria it actually is because bacteria can exchange genes across "species" so it's not really a species... at least not in the sense of eukaryotes (where species are defined such that different species cannot exchange genes with each other)
Even for anything else, it actually is. Taxonomy is our construct that we came up with as a society to classify life. We cannot ever be "right" about it, it can just be more or less useful for us to understand life.
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A paper I quite enjoy is "Queer Theory for Lichens" which argued that queer theory is genuinely a useful framework for studying lichens; Lichens resist categorisation in a manner that feels like they're actively mocking our taxonomic efforts.
I wonder how many people think that this;
is what a coconut actually looks like.
EDIT:
Coconut as it looks on the palm tree
That coconut is clearly not on a palm tree, mate. /s
To be honest, I've noticed that with lots of foods. I know what the thing looks like in stores, but I have no idea what it's like in nature.
Cashews were another recent one, where I never would have guessed what they look like:
If that's not a coconut, what the fuck have I been eating?
Edit: Ok. The edit makes it make sense lol.
Go get those weird looking white ones from an Asian grocery store, they look like styrofoam cylinders with carved pointed tops. Use a butcher's knife to chop the point off. (carefully, they are full of juice, you might be able to cut it just right so it leaves just enough meat over the water cavity.) Insert straw and long spoon to carve the natural jell-o out with. Thank me later.
Edit: this is also a great date-night activity.
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I got to travel Southeast Asia for a time, it's atrocious how much we're missing out on in the USA.
Even the really fresh coconuts here just don't compare to the ones you get fresh off a tree. It's unreal. Don't get me started on my Mango Rant.
I lived in the US Virgin Islands as a kid. Our back yard had a seemingly endless supply of mangoes, bananas, avocado, lime, oranges (the real stuff, not the engineered shit we eat in the mainland), grapefruit, bread fruit, acerola, plantains, and pigeon peas. It wasn't even that big a yard. Shit just grows.
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that looks underripe to me
(from researchgate), Maturity stages of coconut: a) young; b) early ripening; c) ripe
From experience: all stages of a coconut are distinct, edible and used for different dishes, treats, condiments and ingredients. It's truly a wonderous plant and sad that most Americans are only familiar with the overripe, hard kind with hard flesh.
i think they're only familiar with it (edit: the overripe stuff) because they don't pay attention to their thai food. that has exploded in popularity over the last few decades and fuck yeah.
Underripe is when it's nice and full of water. Best when thirsty. Dry and ripe, best when hungry.
On related news, the salmon fish is not salmon color... And beef comes in larger packages on nature.
the salmon fish is not salmon color...
Why, sure it is! 😬
Maybe we just disagree on what color "salmon" is, but the meat is what I would call that color. They're like flamingos in that they take on pigment from their diet. For this reason, farmed salmon will not be "salmon" color unless their diet has been supplemented with the pigment.
BEHOLD! THE MAMMAL! IT GIVES MILK AND HAS HAIR!
(And has venomous claws, lays eggs, has electroreceptors, glows under UV, has 10 sex chromosomes, genetically it’s a mix of reptiles and mammals…)
sounds like average republican
Proof that God is fucking with us
I tell you it’s just an Echidna that made love to a Lizard and that’s how we got the Platypus.
Was the duck an innocent bystander or willing participant?
Videographer that accidentally mixed his genetic juice with the copulating couple
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Ok, but chickens produce milk too, just like coconuts:
wiki/Crop_milk
Also dis:
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Hmm... I am a quack, therefore I duck?
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