3/12/2026 at 2:10:50 PM
by surprisetalk
3/16/2026 at 3:52:25 PM
We used to joke in my biophysics grad program that basically everything was determined by its surface area to volume ratio.by dekhn
3/16/2026 at 7:20:07 PM
"First, assume a spherical chicken."by IAmBroom
3/16/2026 at 3:41:34 PM
>an estimated 70 percent of viral capsids known to date are icosahedral, shaped like tiny soccer balls.Soccer balls are not icosahedra. The archetypal soccer ball is a truncated icosahedron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truncated_icosahedron
by meindnoch
3/16/2026 at 4:37:42 PM
There are a few pictures of truncated icosahedra in the article, alongside several other shapes that are not icosahedra. The point is that they have icosahedral symmetry. The L is important.by yorwba
3/16/2026 at 5:26:05 PM
I was going to comment pedantically that soccer balls were dodecahedrons not icosahedrons, but in reading the article, I came to realize that truncated icosahedrons are the same as truncated dodecahedrons.This was such a delightful realization I felt the need to comment anyway.
by JackFr
3/16/2026 at 3:54:50 PM
And that archetypal soccer ball design is called the Telstar and named for a communications satellite, fun fact. I think before 1968 the volleyball shape was more popular https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adidas_Telstarby 1-more
3/16/2026 at 4:24:41 PM
do you know what the modifier "like" means in the sentence you quoted, or are you just being annoyingly pedanticby strgrd
3/16/2026 at 3:03:37 PM
> even though evolution is contingent at a local level (such as a specific protein sequence or the shape of a flower), it is remarkably predictable at a global level (such as the very existence of proteins and flowers across many species)to be fair... flowers are a very recent invention that appeared only after the dinosaurs got wiped out and clean slate allowed co-evolution of flowers and pollinators to occur
by NooneAtAll3
3/16/2026 at 4:31:30 PM
Flowering plants (angiosperms) appeared during the Cretaceous before dinosaurs got wiped out, and there is fossil evidence of insects pollinating non-flowering plants (gymnosperms) like ferns and confers even earlier than that: https://repository.si.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/152b12d...by yorwba