Breaking news, sex isn't binary in humans because...avocados

[Fenlandia]

Popular Science has tweeted an old article of theirs
www.popsci.com/species-swap-sex-clownfish-avocado/

"What avocados and clownfish have in common, sexually speaking"

A mildly interesting collection of facts about unusual reproductive strategies of certain plants and animals, used to push the idea that sex isn't binary in humans.

So sad to see respectable scientific communicators stoop to the level of woowoo.

The Twitter ratio is whopping now: twitter.com/PopSci/status/1562759034347741184

Wait til they see Jurassic park

To be fair, it's becoming more and more obvious that a frighteningly large number of people are as bright as an avocado so I can see where the confusion may be coming from.

Octonauts. Let's do this!

Damn you all, I was sitting here pretending to read the serious newspaper while actually on mumsnet, this thread just made me snort with laughter which has totally given the game away

But malloo, this was a serious news item, from a very serious outlet. We are just doing the panel analysis on it.

No news is not worthy of a MNer dissection.

Octofeminism.

Octonauts taught me there’s a jelly fish that regenerates/reverts to infant form when frightened, so I watch loads of horror films and I’m 18 again because SCieNCE.

Yes! Immortal jellies. Jellyfish reproduction is FASCINATING. There are several different routes.

'There are a few jellyfish species that receive sperm through their mouths to fertilise eggs inside the body cavity, but most jellyfish just release sperm or eggs directly into the water.'

www.sciencefocus.com/nature/how-do-jellyfish-reproduce/

'Jellyfish have a complex life cycle which includes both sexual and asexual phases, with the medusa being the sexual stage in most instances. Sperm fertilize eggs, which develop into larval planulae, become polyps, bud into ephyrae and then transform into adult medusae. In some species certain stages may be skipped'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellyfish

The lifecycle of aphids involves both asexual and sexual reproduction. Does this mean it's transphobic to try and control the fuckers on my runner beans?

I think it's neutral so long as you control the asexual ones as well, and you identify as a hoverfly larva (was going to say 'ladybird', but that would have opened a whole 'nother can of worm).

If humans are avocados..

"Talk dirty to me"

"Release the bees"

swoon

goes off to Google avocado pollination mechanism... assuming "bees" is lazy but made me laugh

Lol

Of course avocado pollination is where all this started and having actually read the article linked in post 1 I'm going to say that it is a really fucking stupid interpretation of what avocado plants do anyway!

Ffs.

But they do get pollinated by bees. Individual plants just open and close their male and female flowers (which are seperate entities on avocados) at different times to avoid too much self-pollination.

The flowers themselves don't change from male to female and back again, they are just available at different times. That doesn't strike me as actually "changing sex" which is what the article wants it to mean. I think the writer has got themselves rather overexcited about a simple, elegant mechanism to prevent self-pollination.

I haven't seen a single ladybird all year. West coast Scotland, not drought and heatwave related. Where have they all gone?

Lots of plants have male and female parts that ripen at different times. If mammals followed that pattern, not being fertile at the same time, would be less than optimal for species survival.

Avocados, the reason millennials can't afford houses.

Ladybirds. More gaslighters. They're neither ladies nor birds.

Don't get me started on dragonflies.

Sea horses definitely need to have a word with themselves.

Jellyfish, even with custard, sprinkles and whipped cream, yuck! And they're not fish either.

Do Americans call them jellofish?

😁

They are non-binary birds now

A friend of mine ate jellyfish once, said it was very nice until he asked what it was.

I wasn't that impressed with my sea-cucumber salad.

I wasn't that impressed with my sea-cucumber salad.

Surely though, an avo would be an ideal salad accompaniment there too?