• Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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    3 months ago

    If people had wings and could fly it would be considered exercise and nobody would do it.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      3 months ago

      If you look at birds like the kakapo, they would’ve had flight in the evolutionary past, but evolved out of it due to lack of predatory threat.

      This can be part of Island syndrome, where the dodo also suffered from, till sailors came around and found out they were tasty.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 months ago

      this is literally how it works for birds, that’s why you see especially pidgeons and corvids walking so often, they just don’t need to fly a lot so they simply walk.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Between this, my stripes, and my tail… all things I have genes for, but no activation…

    I’m kinda pissed, being human could be far less cringe

  • Python@programming.dev
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    3 months ago

    I want the damn feathers for the social aspect! If we were allowed to preen each other, the world would be a better place!

  • Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 months ago

    My guess is they mean we have the genes to encode the proteins, since we have similar keratinized tissues like hair and nails. But probably not the hox genes to encode the structure

  • kryptonidas@lemmings.world
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    3 months ago

    What does that even mean, you have like “four letters” and dna strands of millions long. Like how selective do you have to be. I’m sure you can basically write anything that way.

    Are there entire chunks that are inactive that would give feathers, that at some point gave feathers to our ancestors?

    • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 months ago

      All things DNA is full of code that doesn’t get activated and is just passed on anyways

      Gene expression is what they mean by “activated”

      Basically think of it like having a library of instruction books and only grabbing a few of them to do the project that needs done.

    • flora_explora@beehaw.org
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      3 months ago

      I agree, this seems pretty misleading. And are there any other feathered animals other than on the dinosaur branch? Because if not, how should the feather DNA even end up in mammalian DNA?? Or maybe feathers are produced by very common differently used genes? But in this case this would be even more nonsensical…

    • psud@aussie.zone
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      3 months ago

      I recall that scientists reactivated chicken genes for teeth and grew a toothed chook

    • swab148@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Just need two chickens, a dispenser, and a redstone clock for infinite chickens