this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
1255 points (100.0% liked)

Science Memes

13600 readers
4154 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 148 points 6 days ago (2 children)

There are fossilized humans. Fossilization really doesn't take that much time, geologically speaking; it just requires very specific conditions.

[–] Copythis@lemmy.world 19 points 6 days ago (4 children)

About how much time are we talkin here?

[–] Geobloke@lemm.ee 27 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] meep_launcher@lemm.ee 11 points 6 days ago (3 children)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] psud@aussie.zone 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Human species before H. Sapiens

load more comments (2 replies)

I know there's some animal fossils in New Zealand that date back to its colonization by the ancestors of the Maori, so about the 1400s. Though I don't know if they are partially or fully fossilized.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] obstbert@feddit.org 12 points 6 days ago

Also makes you wonder what fossils they mean, of the same species or then already extinct ones.

Because according to a quick Wikipedia search the oldest hominid fossils (?) are something like 7 millions years old

That's much much shorter than dinosaurs where around but hey " hominins are around long enough to unearth hominin fossils"!

[–] Mr_Fish@lemmy.world 123 points 6 days ago (6 children)

It is more chronologically accurate to show a t-rex being hit by a car than it is to show a t-rex eating a stegosaurus

[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 56 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

I said I'm sorry. But if you're going to let your T-Rex out at night you should at least put a reflective collar on it.

[–] Frozengyro@lemmy.world 28 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Hi, I was just calling because I live down the street from you, and your daughter come to my house today and she kick my t-rex.

Your daughter come to my house today, And she come on my property and then she kick my t-rex. And now my t-rex needs operation.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 35 points 6 days ago (1 children)

How cruel.

My T-Rex ist mostly armless

[–] Frozengyro@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago

That would be a knee slapper if I could reach.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] irish_link@lemmy.world 25 points 6 days ago

This is the comparison I was looking for. It’s great to explain that media shows them together but untrue, it is a totally different idea to explain the staggering time difference between the two.

[–] ziggurat@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

You made me scroll up to the picture again, looking for a T-Rex or a car

[–] Zzyzx@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 6 days ago

And people mocked me for my human-tyrannosaur slashfic on ao3. Well, who's laughing now?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 120 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

This is only mind blowing because popular media likes to show every dinosaur at once. Like there's a lot of things depicting stegosaurus fighting T-Rex; but these animals never would have met. They're from entirely different periods.

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 93 points 6 days ago (2 children)

How dare you suggest DinoTrux lied to us!!!

[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 35 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

If gasoline is made from dinosaurs, what did the Dinotrux run on?

[–] argh_another_username@lemmy.ca 45 points 6 days ago

The blood of their enemies!!!

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 26 points 6 days ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] stupidcasey@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

DinoTrux drove the earth for such a long time BP Oil^®^ existed while DinoTrux drove the earth.

[–] Gloomy@mander.xyz 24 points 6 days ago

You can tell because non of them has feathers.

[–] negativenull@lemmy.world 41 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

We live closer to the time of T-Rex than T-Rex lived to the time of Stegosaurus.

67 million years separate us from T-Rex.
83 million years separate T-Rex from Stegosaurus. (150 million years between us and Stegosaurus)

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 6 days ago (4 children)

on a similar note: When cleopatra lived, the pyramids were already ancient

[–] neatobuilds@lemmy.today 18 points 6 days ago (6 children)

Cleopatra lived closer to t-rex than us

[–] Pregnenolone@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

You were born after cleopatra died 🫠🤑👻

Follow me for more Greece facts.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] FoD@startrek.website 64 points 6 days ago (3 children)

This meme made me gasp loud enough that my girlfriend was worried something was wrong.

Then I had to explain that I'm 41 years old and was just shocked by a dinosaur fact.

[–] fossilesque@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

To be fair, things can fossilise very quickly given ideal conditions. Still dinosaurs reigned for a lot more time than mammals and frankly nature is still feeling the loss in certain ways.

https://www.americanforests.org/article/the-trees-that-miss-the-mammoths/

[–] negativenull@lemmy.world 23 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Another fun fact (dino facts are the best facts): There are more "dinosaur" species alive today than there are mammal species.
11,000 bird species alive today (approx)
6,000 mammal species alive today (approx)

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] fossilesque@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 6 days ago

Also, my favourite fact is we know almost nothing about dinosaurs from jungles and mountains. Most of our knowledge comes from wetland and oceanic creatures because of the way fossils are formed.

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago

Forty-one?! You're practically a fossil!

[–] JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world 29 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Birds are considered to be dinosaurs. Birds exist now. We are finding dinosaur fossils now.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago

That's what the XKCD that was posted says. Mostly.

[–] nothacking@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 5 days ago (5 children)
[–] Akasazh@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago

There's always a relevant xkcd

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

"Hey, isn't that Dave's skull?"

"Can't be, I just saw him this morning. Sure looks like him though. Weird."

[–] borokov@lemmy.world 19 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Also, water you are drinking has probably been peed by dinosaure. Several time. But probably not peed by a human.

[–] greenhorn@lemm.ee 7 points 5 days ago

Second relevant xkcd of the comments https://what-if.xkcd.com/74/

[–] kbal@fedia.io 24 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Does getting buried in pumice count as becoming a fossil? Because Pompeii was only a couple thousand years ago.

[–] SARGE@startrek.website 7 points 6 days ago (3 children)

From wikipedia: A fossil (from Classical Latin fossilis, lit. 'obtained by digging')[1] is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age.

Answer: yes. It does count. Specifically carbonization.

Personal take: when I think of a "fossil", I think of the stereotypical mineralized bones. Like the T-Rex in the museum of natural history that most people have seen from various movies and TV shows. Thinking of human and human predecessor bones as fossils is just weird to me.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Well, there are human fossiles aswell and we have been here for a pretty short time.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Baggie@lemmy.zip 4 points 5 days ago

I suddenly feel very small, but also the load off my shoulders lifted.

[–] Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world 13 points 6 days ago

Well, there are plenty of hominid fossils and we humans are plentiful.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

OK, now I'm imagining dinosaur archaeologists (monocles and brushes, not bullwhips and quips).

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago

There are still a few of them in government.

load more comments