this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
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Science Memes

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top 31 comments
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[–] Fleur_@aussie.zone 2 points 23 hours ago

Plants don't want to they just do. The human experience is wanting the freak, not being born into it.

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 35 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Some plant aliens land and discover the air itself gets them pregnant from all the pollen freely flying around from such numerous and primitive plant life. Terra is the plant equivalent of an unbridled sex planet.

[–] Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 37 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Dendrologists: [heavy breathing]

In all seriousness, isn't it pretty unlikely that alien life could interbreed with terran life even if they also used DNA with the same bases?

[–] ajmaxwell@lemmy.world 37 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We won't know until we try

[–] Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Scientist 1: "How are things coming along with our test subjects?"

Scientist 2: "I don't know, it's about time to check back in with them."

Scientist 2: "Hey, Mike? How's it going?"

Mike: "Not too bad. There have been some challenges, but I think we got a few things worked out."

Scientist 2: "Oh...my. was that it's--"

Mike: "No, I don't think so, but it seems like it was mutually enjoyable, though, so write that down."

[Trilling noises in the background]

[–] vrek@programming.dev 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But think of the splinters... Oh god... Think of the splinters... Mike should get hazard pay

[–] Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Bold of you to assume Mike isn't paying for the privilege.

[–] vrek@programming.dev 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

True, all I'm going to say is if you look up videos on "cbt therapy" make sure to put therapy in the search and/or have safe search on, as a result I believe Mike may enjoy the splinters

[–] spankinspinach@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The upsetting part about this is the 't' already stands for therapy. And nothing else

[–] vrek@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, I'll give you a more complete response after I go to the atm machine where I'll enter my pin number. 😜

sighs in overwhelming redundancy

Actually I loved that haha

[–] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Incredibly. Even very closely related organisms can have a hard time breeding

[–] Noodle07@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

I know I'm having a hard time breeding

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's extremely unlikely that their DNA has the same translation semantics into proteins.

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Not unless there is a common ancestor, which is theoretically possible. But yeah, extremely unlikely.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Wow. So I went looking if people actually knew when our codon system appeared.

Turns out that there are 26 slightly different systems on Earth right now, and there are good reasons to expect random alien life to have a system that looks like ours, but is different enough to not be compatible.

[–] blackbrook@mander.xyz 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Well it seems safe to say it's at least as unlikely as a terran species being able to breed with some randomly selected other terran species.

Even when possible, it's often inadvisable as we learned from the monkapotamus in Drew Carey's famous documentary: https://youtu.be/BLbJC7LeC8E

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What would happen if I crossbred with citrus? 🤔

[–] the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I once had a short-lived romance with a Hanks Hard Lemonade

Doctors hate this one simple trick

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago

Xenophytophilia is my favorite word in the English language

[–] Psaldorn@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you like the idea of alien plant based fiction check out Semiosis by Sue Burke. Recommend going in blind

[–] Barrymore@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Or the Infected trilogy by Scott Sigler

[–] Psaldorn@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Ooh, I'll add it to the list

then they will try to domesticate us. I've read the literature

[–] blackbrook@mander.xyz 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Serious question: I know many oaks can crossbreed with each other, but do oaks actually crossbreed with non-oaks?

[–] huf@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

they can apparently even crossbreed with professors!

[–] Evilsandwichman@hexbear.net 5 points 2 days ago
[–] Phoenix3875@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

How do you know if this hasn't happened already?