#Essential Biology

[yakny]

ERROR! THIS OPERATING SYSTEM DOES NOT SUPPORT OLDER VERSIONS OF 'SELF'.

[witchofthesouls]

I wish the Lost Colonies' cultures and biological quirkw had been delved deeper, especially how they would viciously clash with modern Cybertron, both pre- and post-War.

I mean, I think it's really interesting juxtaposition between the deep scars of Functionism versus the other worlds' sources of prejudice and discrimination. Camien devotion and deification of Solus versus a Cybertron with no femmes with Megatron's and Optimus' cult of personality as well as atheism and agnosticism, especially among their respective inner circles. Cybertron's complete desolation and Eukaris' lush and lively greenery. The meritocracy of racing-obsessed Velocitron. Prion had minicons with multiple alts, and Devisiun yielded split-spark twins. The people of Carcer are those of wardens living in a prison.

Do the Camiens think of their Titan's homeworld as cold and lonely? Would they think of those from Cybertron suffering from disorders from the lack of close, intimate connections and no true community?

Velocritron descended from the scientists of Navitas, and they utilized the scorching heat to derive alternative sources of fuel. Do they scorn the deprived worlds for not searching for solutions?

How do the Eukarians view the others that cyberformed their planets? Do they see Cybertron and the others as sterile and lifeless; their civility is a cheap, hollow mimicry that hides their teeth and claws?

The Carcerians developed an austere culture that prioritized keeping their Titan on complete lockdown to the point sacrificing themselves to achieve that goal. How do they view Caminus' offering to dismantle himself so his own children can thrive in such a harsh environment?

How do diplomacy and common courtesy differ from each planet? The language and food? The behaviors? The relations with nearby neighbors, both mechanical and organic?

[nochd]

This came across my dash via the #lgbt tag yesterday. I don't want to engage with the OP because that would get me into fights on radfem tumblr and I don't have the energy for that. But the post itself I think is worth answering, just because it's so neatly and exactly wrong.

(Not that my answer is going to spread very far, because I have 37 non-bot followers, of whom I think roughly 35.5 are just here for the nude photos. But anyway.)

Even if I agree just for argument's sake that the existence of intersex people proves that some people can have "nonbinary" sexes, or "third" sexes, and that "sex is a spectrum," how does that have any relevance to people who are not intersex? Like okay, let's "agree" for the moment that intersex people are something other than male or female. How does that make YOU, as a person who is not intersex, something other than male or female? Saying that intersex people's existence somehow makes sex "complicated" for you specifically is like saying that the issue of whether or not you can hear is "complicated" because some other people who are not you suffer from hearing loss or deafness. Like sorry but for 99% of the human population it is not "more complicated" than born with perfectly normal male genitalia = male and born with perfectly normal female genitalia = female, and chances are you fall into that 99%. Sex is not a social construct or a nebulous enigma of a concept. It is not debatable and made up in the manner that gender is. You cannot philosophize about whether there are two sexes any more than you can philosophize about whether humans have two kidneys. Someone having a missing or malformed kidney or accessory kidneys does not change the fact that humans as a species have two kidneys. Humans are gonochoric just like nearly all other animal species on Earth.

Let's start with the arithmetic. If 99% people are of binary sex, that leaves 1% of people who aren't. There are approximately 8 billion humans on Earth. 1% of 8 billion is 80 million -- about sixteen times the population of my entire country. Even just the number of intersex Americans is something like two-thirds the population of my country. This is not a negligible number of people.

There's a deeper error here, one that goes to the root not just of this misunderstanding but of many. Biology is always complicated, at every scale and at every level of explanation. It's messy, it's fuzzy, and it's always bottom-up, never top-down. Everything biological is the way it is because it grew that way. Biology never does the same thing twice.

Why does it seem like it does? Because, of all the ways you can arrange the parts of a living body, only an astonishingly tiny fraction of them actually make a living body. Any genetic mutation that nudges an organism outside of that fraction dies out and doesn't get passed on. Embryonic development is a gruelling tight-rope walk over a vast pit of non-existence.

Now for most of the body's systems, evolution has only had to produce one arrangement that works and survives. There's not an alternative plumbing plan where the oesophagus goes to the lungs and the trachea to the stomach. But for the reproductive system, evolution has to allow for two arrangements that work and survive, and it has to grow them both from the same starter kit.

What it does, therefore, is grow a body plan that works with a continuum of possible arrangements that includes both of those two. Various other points on the continuum may or may not be capable of producing viable gametes, but they're all survivable.

What biology doesn't do -- what biology never ever does -- is run new products on a conveyor belt stamping them into shape with cookie-cutters. The only things made that way are artificial constructs.

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

5

(F I V E)

5. What's your controversial marine biology take? Oh, have I been talking about my controversial takes these past few days! Ocean sunfish.... beautiful, so silly but so beautiful.

To name another thing, perhaps this is moreso something that grinds my gears rather than a controversial take but I haaaaate when people say that male seahorses get pregnant. It's what it looks like but it's not the case!!! He just has a pouch where the egg are deposited for safekeeping, it's like mouthbrooding but with a designated pouch!! He does not produce the eggs and all the nutrition the eggs receive was never from him!!! Perhaps I get too hung up on these aquatic animal technicalities, but it still makes me needlessly annoyed whenever in fiction there's like, seahorses, and they imply that the process of seahorse baby development is the exact same as human baby development but.... backwards for sexes..?

[starlit-eudemonia]

Recently, I was learning abt birds came across the fact that most birds have a syrinx as their voice box responsible for vocal production. This can allow them to harmonize w/ themselves. I think that would be really cool if Mhin has that ability in both their human and monster form?

And they just- have the ability to speak in two different pitches at the same time and they kind of just resonate it as one voice when speaking. Also, when out of control their voice box is more distorted or harmonized? Just a thought.

[spooky-space-kook]

The creator of Hazbin Hotel (who I know nothing about and *strongly prefer it that way*) simultaneously

A) Making a pitch perfect Tumblr Sexyman, then announcing they're aro ace, and

B) Announcing that Lucifer was the one who gave birth to the child, not Lilith

Will forever be the funniest shit I have ever seen. I'm convinced this is top tier trolling, and I love it.

[uncanny-tranny]

Your body isn't meant to do anything beyond housing you, and it's really harrowing how many people don't recognize this.

It's harrowing how people talk about how bodies must "serve a purpose", to be little more than breeding stock. That if your body doesn't serve a purpose - serve the right purpose - that it is, essentially, a "useless body"

You are a human being. You aren't breeding stock. You aren't a sounding board for other peoples' desires. You aren't a "worthless body". Your body houses you, and beyond that? That is up to you.

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

When you have to take off your socks to change into clean socks and your bare feet touch the floor for exactly fifteen seconds and the dry, smooth sensation makes you want to chop your toes off

[draakart]

After a look into the recent past (50-100 years ago) with the last illustration, let's look back further.

In the geteza homeworld's ancient seas, the mostly sessile Zoophytes share a sea-dwelling ancestor with the mostly motile creatures of the planet. All Zoophytes, sessile or not, have a mutually beneficial relationship with photosynthetic red algae-like organisms. In sessile Zoophytes, these microbes are responsible for creating most of the creature's energy. Paedomorphic Zoophytes, on the other hand, are consumers and get their energy from eating other organisms, with the red microbes supplementing their energy levels.

Cultures of these microbes are passed down from parent to offspring, leading to many different strains.

Most sessile Zoophytes will only exchange gametes during their motile, reproductive phase, with different courtship rituals dependent on species, using the stored genetic material for use only once it has fully metamorphosed.

[boag]

Does the person who left these tags know what bio essentialism is? This is a very serious question

[gxlden-angels]

I need Americans that were never Christian™️ to realize that the average conservative cult christian's thoughts are basically that one episode of Spongebob where he gets elected Hall Monitor and gives a speech with "Crime and Punishment. Punishment and Crime"

[cinnabar-circus]

What’s the picky eaters AU?

just my little self-indulgent vampire au, that somehow, accidentally, not on purpose ended up being very focused on feeding mechanics. hence the stupid name.

[jackdaw-and-hattrick]

Batman, in an act of unmitigated vengeance and violence, decided that his coworkers were in need of a breakdown of one of the most hazardous risks posed to the league; he sat them all down and gave them the sex talk

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

reading dungeon meshi

[nerosdayinanime]

Sanemi & Giyuu were about 16-17 when they both individually went on an undercover mission in the Kaze no Kuni capital city, they henged/disguised as fake personas Kazura (vaguely derived from kaze, wind) and Nakuu ('to lose')

Kazura is supposed to be darker skinned + two-toned eyes like that of Kazan no Kuni descendants & is sensible and confident but lazy, Nakuu has a hairstyle + facial shape from Mizu no Kuni & an outgoing enthusiastic and pretty sly personality

Giyuu put some particular effort into his disguise and really got into the character he was playing up, he also had fun with it where he could- and thats how he met Kazura. i dont have or really want specifics of why where how or such bc it ruins the imaginative bit of it ig? but while they were on the mission they were meeting up, they both knew the other was disguised but neither pried about it. they fell in love a bit, however it means, but as Nakuu's namesake they were never going to last. it was a mission and when it was done they would leave for home and never meet again.

but then they did :)

at 19 sanemi and giyuu had a political marriage arranged(forced) by Kyogo being a greedy fuck and wanting more trade from the Tomioka, in both the Happy & Broken marriage paths giyuu's the one who notices sanemi acting the same way as kazura in some ways and realizes the two are one in the same. In the Happy marriage its a thought that brings a smile to his face and a jest about how they fell in love twice, in the Broken marriage its only twice the heartbreak after the apathy sanemi regards him with and the loneliness that consumes him

[uncanny-tranny]

Sometimes, when people try to invoke "trans-inclusive" bioessentialism in their arguments, I want to ask exactly what about our assigned sex says about our place in society, and ask how they've worked that into their worldview in a way that somehow simultaneously doesn't deny who we are and includes the fact that a trans experience will mean that we navigate the world in often very different ways than our cis peers, and often bucks the trends of what is commonly experienced by cis people