Kedase Derragar

Well hello, and welcome to my blog. Some fandom stuff, some (sfw) guys, etc. I play a lot of FFXIV (Lho'ir Misata'lho and Irvin Brasshammer on Zalera | Yuzuru Akagane and Minhto'a Sarrhas on Mateus).

[solarmorrigan]

So. 10th grade English class. We all come in one morning to find a balloon and a perfectly sharpened pencil on each of our desks. No instructions, no explanation, which is strange, because our teacher is meticulous about that sort of thing. A couple of people try to ask her and she says we’ll get to it. She takes role and then announces that she needs to go to the copy room and she’ll be back in a couple of minutes

Kinda unorthodox, but no one is complaining because this is advanced English and the teacher usually goes kinda hard. So, y’know. Brief respite. We all sit and chat; one of the boys teasingly steals a girl’s balloon, but gives it back to her easily enough; it’s quiet and kind of a nice break. Then the teacher comes back, stops in the doorway, and just stares at us

After a long moment, she says, confused, “You didn’t pop the balloons.”

To which one of the guys about two rows over exclaims, “We’re allowed to pop them?” and immediately turns around and stabs his friend’s balloon with the pencil

There is a vicious revenge balloon-stabbing, and a few more people pop seatmates’ balloons or their own, and the whole time the teacher is just shaking her head. “I can’t believe you didn’t pop your balloons.”

Apparently we were starting Lord of the Flies that day and she wanted to demonstrate the basic concept of kids turning on each other when there are no authority figures present and it was basically my favorite failed social experiment ever

[handsmotif]

petco is pushing their employees to download a new social media app that’s like facebook but for the entire company so it like connects u to other workers all over the country

it’s like SUPPOSED to be like all work related stuff but I joined a shitposting group on there and an lgbt group and even got roped into joining a dnd campaign so I’ve just been relaxing laughing at very niche petco worker memes all night

[handsmotif]

this is my favorite

[autogynephiladelphia]

Duolingo bimboification

[regularlesbian]

2019: cute!

2014: classic. Nice.

2012: eats human skin

2011: this might be a harmful black magic sigil

[lilitasticc]

Duo Owl c. 1536

[groovy-mushroom]

0h god he’s the demon of knowledge i knew it

[annoying-copycat-blog]

@handsomme

[little-urban-witch]

Thanks for the free Spanish lessons, Duo Demon

[lllllllllll-llllllll-deactivate]

[terrible-tentacle-theatre]

you: Daborn-Waterfield Syndrome

me, an intellectual: makes caterpillars floppy

[terrible-tentacle-theatre]

Some other choice gene names include:

snail

oskar

cactus

sonic hedgehog

[tiritirimatangi]

Some more of my favorite genes:

Cleopatra (interacts with the Asp gene!)

Julius seizure (does NOT interact with cleopatra, unfortunately. Causes seizures)

Cheap Date (increases alcohol sensitivity)

Ken and Barbie (causes loss of external genitalia)

Also, the hox genes, like antennapedia. Not a particularly funny name, but if you mutant antennapedia flys grow legs where their antennae should be.

[terrible-tentacle-theatre]

IT

KEEPS

GETTING

BETTER

Some others fun ones:

The sonic hedgehog gene has a signal inhibitor called robotnikinin.

The halloween genes, a gene complex composed of spook, spookier, shadow, shade, shroud and phantom. Tampering with this one fucks up the exoskeleton development of fruit flies and makes them freaky looking among other things, so the name is apt.

Tinman (mutations prevent the development of a heart, à la the Tin Man from Oz)

Flippase and floppase (a pair of proteins that pass phosphatidylserines back and forth across the outer side of the cell membrane)

MAP kinase, MAP kinase kinase etc. This stacks four times to result in MAP kinase kinase kinase kinase

Mothers against decapentaplegic (represses the decapentaplegic gene in the embryo if it’s mutated in the mother).

[tiritirimatangi]

Fun fact, there’s a hedgehog gene, and Indian hedgehog gene, and a sonic hedgehog gene

Also, the sonic hedgehog gene has expression that gets messed up my some chemicals (including alcohol) during pregnancy. So this leads to doctors having to explain to patient the something is wrong with their sonic hedgehog gene. 

There’s actually a really good reason for these funny names though! Aside from scientists being dorks. Because if you discover a gene that is expressed wrong during cancer, and call it lung cancer gene 1, later on you might discover that it’s normal function is to make brain cells or something. That’s a problem, because it’ll forever bias research into that gene, because people will assume its a cancer gene, rather than playing multiple important roles in different pathways. Funny names, or naming the gene after the phenotype (the physical appearance of individuals with mutations in the gene), avoid this problem!

Naming the gene after the phenotype?

Well… this is what the hedgehog gene does to fruit flies, which is the species it was discovered in.

It. Literally makes the fly larvae look like hedgehogs. 

This is why  makes caterpillars floppy is called that! The authors Did A Good And Funny, and more importantly, other scientists aren’t going to look at that gene in the database and assume we already know everything about its function. Other scientists are going to look at that gene and go “floppy lol”.

[terrible-tentacle-theatre]

So what have we learned today? Scientists giving genes funny names and other scientists going “floppy lol” actually serves an important role in keeping scientists from missing crucial research by assuming they know everything already. Every time you think science can’t get any more amazing it… just… does.

(admittedly though, some funny name genes do stand for their functions. Pokemon stands for “POKerythroid myeloid ontogenic factor” and diablo stands for “Direct IAP binding protein, low”.)

[lokiagentofasgard]

I worked with zebra fish and I really enjoyed the Santa Claus, Valentine’s, and heart of glass genes (all mess up heart development), and my absolute favourite - sonic hedgehog only acts on anterior midline seperation in d. rerio, there’s an analogue gene that handles posterior midline separation, and it is called tiggywinkle hedgehog.

as in Mrs Tiggywinkle, the hedgehog from the Beatrix Potter books.

it is very hard to present research findings with a straight face when they include this.

[42ismynumber]

not even just genes! there’s prolactin, big prolactin, and big big prolactin, which is amazing.  Scientists are great at naming things

[dailyrowlet]

[corsolanite]

LOL THIS FUCKING EPISODE

[stickyfrogs]

Today’s Best Behaved Frog was NOT Voigt.

[itsbetterthananal]

the look of a pure menace

[the-british-pineapple]

He knows what he did

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

Loving the knew Pokémon starters

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

I’ll love my daughter even if she becomes a Gamzee cosplayer and if you can’t do the same that’s very telling

[a-girl-with-sparkling-lies]

How I knew instantly that the new Pokemon is a UK world

THIS

is not a beret. Its a tam o’ shanter, traditionally Scottish.

Nintendo give me zesty Scottish Pokemanz i beg of you

[scruffyturtlesarchives-blog]

GROOKEY GANG RISE UP

[rumwik]

New pokemon! Grookey, Scorbunny and Sobble (but tiny, and fat)

[sylvonyx]

BAAAABYYYYYYYYYYY♥♥♥♥♥

[1eona]

heye every one.

[1eona]

i have on important announcemen t to make.

[1eona]

sam.

[1eona]

[arcticsuggestions]

is it scurvy? is it lead? is it tuberculosis? is it the crippling loneliness? who knows we’re all dying

[bro-stoevsky]

millennial burnout or doomed victorian arctic expedition

[catscenter]

[magistrate-of-mediocrity]

IT’S CALLED A CAT WALK!!!! SHE DID NOTHING WRONG.

[shikuuz-deactivated20200407]

he angery

[corsolanite]

[beingbreannaleigh]

“I’m a non-Christian living the South, I can’t even go to a god damn potluck without having to thank some space fairy for the broccoli casserole, and honey, it makes me a little uncomfortable.”

I’m WHEEZING.

This is me at every family gathering.

[tygermama]

‘and fuck Nancy Grace, too’

[smolpocketmonstercoffee]