General Discussion

biology is... something that's for sure.

i could talk about it all day (good thing i'm being paid to do that)

I love biology and taught myself everything I know. Which might not be a lot or might be? Decent? I guess? I never took a course because I didn't realize how into it I'd be and I literally, mentally, for the life of me can't remember scientific words to save myself. I always worry that it'll make me sound like I'm trying to be knowledgeable but because I don't know 1 specific word that covers all bases I'll be treated like I don't know what I'm on about.
Petition to remove fancy science words for the people with horrible memories and worse focus problems. Sign here:

But seriously biology is so fascinating to me... I've always been enamored by it, especially in the vein of evolution and adaptation. It's crazy but incredible that creatures can completely rewrite their form to fit an area over time just to survive better. That kind of change is so fun to look at...

My favourite thing to do is create creatures for fandoms or speculate on existing ones, just to think about what environmental features impacted their changes into what they are in the present. Even just to think about how they work at all with their wild and dramatic appearances.
Monster Hunter is one of my favourite franchises and a big part of that is how it tries to tie the monsters into realism in a way, providing explanations for how they can attack in a certain way or what their lifestyle is.

I won't say more, mostly because I'm not gonna sound anywhere near as intelligent as the rest of the folks in this thread (goddamn fancy words be DAMNED), but know that biology is a big part of what I love and I'm always gonna be hype about beafts of all kinds :]

[quote name="PlagueAlchemist" date="2023-02-26 14:22:42" ] I know a lot of various different biology subjects, though mentioning things similar to taxonomy: -Sea turtles can be related to reptiles (lizards are an example). They are cold-blooded and share similar reptile traits. -Hawks are more closely related to eagles, and are slightly further away from falcons. -Lightning bugs are related to beetles, because they are in similar categorized areas. [/quote] I'm not sure what you mean by "sea turtles can be related to reptiles". They're turtles, which are reptiles. They're in the class Reptilia along with lizards, snakes, crocodilians, and tuataras.

@holodecks
I meant to say that they were in the same class as reptiles, which is how they can be similar and/or related to them. Sorry about any miscommunication there.

My one (1) contact who actively works in bio and discusses the field with me is less evo-eco and more microbio. That is also where my much more casual interest in the field lies. And time away from active study means my knowledge ranges from useless to nonexistent. So my taxonomic knowledge is nil, and I can explain in very broad strokes how certain viruses replicate, but that's about it.

I'm posting because after...about six decades of research (if the English-language Wikipedia and any sources it's citing is anything to go by), we may finally have a vaccine against RSV! Woo hoo! A panel of independent advisors to the US FDA has recommended two, so we'll see how it goes from there.

@plaguealchemist Lol no worries. Speaking of sea turtles, aren't leatherbacks the coolest thing you've ever seen?? They look so bizarre, absolutely nothing else on earth looks like them. I believe they're the last descendants of the largest turtle species ever discovered, and are the largest species living today.

@holodecks I've heard of those types of sea turtles before, I can second that they're definitely amazing sights to see! Their coloration pattern astounds me most of the time, they just look so visually soothing. Also, I'm hoping that leatherback population counts improve, given what I've heard about their species. They're certainly very interesting, though!!

I was waiting to type a longer reply for a time, and got busy with some things, otherwise I would've replied earlier.

@PlagueAlchemist yeah I'm really dismayed that they're becoming so rare, they deserve to rule the oceans as the kings of aquatic reptiles.

[quote name="Coincidence" date="2023-02-25 08:54:27" ] [quote name="bulrush" date="2023-02-25 08:49:57" ] sorry i should've specified this is because of taxonomy, its the same reason for why there's a genuine push to classify the domains of life into only bacteria and archea so all humans will technically be archea too... [/quote] I haven’t heard of this. Is that true? I thought archaea were also prokaryotic, so lumping eukaryotes in with them doesn’t make sense. [/quote] I've also heard about this (we had a group project last year about this topic last year)! Apparently, archea from the superphylums TACK and Asgard have proteins that are characteristic to eukaryotes. That might explain something. There is this article from 2021 about Asgard: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03494-3 I can't add much to the topic though. I'm a biotech student, not biology haha Edit: I love plant biology, so here's a random fact about plants: Plant without chlorophyll are a thing. Meet [i]Monotropa uniflora[/i], also known as ghost pipe. It doesn't have chlorophyll, so it must be parasitic to survive [img]https://beautifuloregon.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Indian-Pipe-Monotropa-uniflora-717-134-762s-1200x1629.jpg[/img]

@holodecks I am saddened as well still, it is really unfortunate. I hope they can be less rare some day, the species definitely deserves that! They're one of my favorite types of sea turtles as well.