Kids These Days Are Spending Too Much Time Modifying Their Reproductive Organs Into Intriguing Shapes

for real though imagine being one of the first botanists to study fern and lycophyte sex and you put the sex water (the water in which they are having sex bc they love it soooooo much) under the microscope and theyre cranking out these damn Doohickies that swim like people sperm.... what is going On down there

Ready to take on another day of PCR disasters

Did you know! Elephant Seals are negatively buoyant, which means that they sink naturally in the water, but have to use energy to swim back up. This means that they are able to save 18-24% of their energy on a dive compared to having to actively swim down. This descent is so effective that they can actually fall asleep on the way down! They are also officially described as "falling like a leaf". Have a look at the cool diagram below that I pulled from one of my university lectures that I went to a few years ago.

ID: a diagram of the descent pattern of an elephant seal. There are three axes (depth, distance west and distance south) showing the distances from the release point in metres. There is a coloured scale showing the speed of the descent, and a spiral made up of coloured dots that show the route.

i regret nothing

Questioner: My question is about biology and genetics. We've seen that magical systems rely on *inaudible* genetics, like allomancy, or spiritual DNA. Can we use *inaudible* CRISPR to either weaponize or take someone's magical ability or give them a magical ability?

Brandon Sanderson: Kind of. The in-world version of this is Hemalurgy, as you already know. There are methods that would do this, but straight genetics alone with CRISPR wouldn't do it.

You need the spiritual component for these to work, almost assuredly. You might be able to use CRISPR... no, I don't think there are any of them it would work on. Is it possible you could make someone into a kandra?

That may be possible, right? But I'm not 100% sure on that.

Questioner: Can you use CRISPR with Ashyn viruses or bacteria?

Brandon Sanderson: Probably not, but that's more likely. I'd have to think on that. I'm gonna say "probably not" for now, but we'll minorly RAFO that. Good questions.

"Many species of polychaetes undergo epitoky whereby sexually immature worms transform into pelagic morphs capable of sexual reproduction. After fertilization, they release their gametes through rapid disintegration." worms are out here having insane sex we can't even comprehend

by mermaid_danii