this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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top 39 comments
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[–] [email protected] 91 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Feel like a good sponge costume would allow you to pee right where you are.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I got the "Robert Sponge Rectangle Slacks" version from Spirit Halloween... but it doesn't hold water when pissing myself :(

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Should probably come with a warning about that. Pretty disappointing.

[–] [email protected] 78 points 5 days ago

I guess it depends on what kind of sponge, but I think in all likelihood since most sponges have no symmetry that this comes down to the same politics as an agender person choosing a bathroom.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Flounders are not bilaterally symmetrical.

[–] [email protected] 89 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 days ago (1 children)

YOU'RE NOT BILATERALLY SYMMETRICAL

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago (2 children)

He can't understand you, dude.

Hey,

Flounder!

You'

re no

t bila

terall

y sym

metri

cal!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

It's a little hard to pick up, but it's all about one rule: Everything has to be on one side of the page.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Ah, thanks, I really don't speak flounder too well. Really should learn considering how close to Norway I live

[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

In the tree of life, flounders are a sub-sub-...-sub-species of bilaterally symmetrical animals: https://www.onezoom.org/life/@Holozoa=5246131?otthome=%40_ozid%3D1&highlight=path%3A%40Apionichthys_finis%3D3640785&highlight=path%3A%40Bilateria%3D117569#x2913,y-2310,w8.2796

Edit: let me preemptively be a pedant to myself and say that "sub-...-species" is wrong because "bilaterally symmetrical animals" is not a species. Flounder is itself a species AFAIK, not a sub-species of anything. It is a descendant of the common ancestor of all bilaterally symmetrical animals. There, now surely no one will find anything to be pedantic about :D

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I appreciate that information. However, flounders themselves are not bilaterally symmetrical. I have caught many dozens of them and it's pretty easy to tell that they are not.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Flounders are born symmetrical; eye migration happens as they transition to the juvenile stage of growth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Oh, I know. It's very interesting. But when people imagine a flounder, they generally don't imagine a juvenile unless juvenile has been specified.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Isn't it referring to during development? Like as they're forming, they are bilateral? I haven't taken developmental biology in many years, so I'm maybe wrong.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

They're only bilateral when they're very young. And even then, everyone is just focusing on the eyes. The body of the fish is also not exactly bilateral. Just fillet a flounder of any age (or watch a video on it) and you'll see.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They are born (or hatch too lazy to look up) and their eyes move later once they get larger.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Yeah. I just wasn't sure at what point things are considered to be bilateral or otherwise.

I thought it may have been during the development process, but can't remember.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

Just like starfish!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Forego the illusion of species and families. It's taxa all the way down.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago

It depends on whether it was a larvae or not.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

They're "differently symmetrical."

[–] [email protected] 41 points 5 days ago
[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Pretty sure from my B- in zoo that sponges eat from what amounts to our waste hole.

So you are supposed to piss in the punchbowl and drink from the toilette.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

They are a single orifice kind of animal. Take a gulp of sea water, sift oit the goodies, and expel the rest

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago

Yeah. ok. See what kind of biological insight a B- gets you?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago

Toilette du fromage.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago (2 children)

What if you take off the costume? Humans aren't entirely bilaterally symmetrical (at least not on the inside) and obviously not radially symmetrical so the paradox continues.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Is any animal perfectly bilaterally symmetrical?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

Their mom definitely got it... Slam! with the alley-oop!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Might be, but she gives it to everyone else

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Humans are definitely bilaterally symmetrical. Symmetry doesn't have to be a perfect mirror image in biology.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago

What about phylum neutral bathrooms?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago

Echinoderms:

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

TIL sponges don't do punctuation.