What I saw:
What I thought: “Ha, biology lolcat! Wait… That’s not identical, obviously one has some sort of somatic mutation if that’s mitosis. The image would fit better if they were making a joke about meiosis, since crossing over occurs during meiosis I, resulting in non-identical daughter cells. But then what would meiosis II result in? Half-cats? Kittens?”
Goddammit grad school, you’re making me overanalyze funny pictures of cats. I’m doomed.
Wow.
To be fair, I’m not a biology student, just a college graduate, and I had the exact same reaction to the picture. :P
They are obviously non-identical kittehs, so it’s just the text at the bottom that’s wrong. Meowsis has obviously resulted in the kitteh on the right inheriting both alleles for a blue collar, for example.Perhaps the result of meowsis II would be a HALPloid kitteh?
I think it is trying to reference meiosis, but got the science parts of it all wonky. …something about the BASementAL cat membrane.
It only gets worse from here on out. Take it from a fifth year.
In my Occupational Therapy program we tend to spend a freakish number of class breaks analyzing the implications of Glee with regard to feminism, disability rights/independent living movements and GLBTQ rights.
I work with a whole department full of grad students (and was one, once upon a time). Trust me, this is only the beginning… (mwahahahaha…)
Mitosis gives rise to two genetically identical cells, but they may differentiate in their expression. For instance, if the cat in the basket was the stem cell, the emerging cat might be a differentiated cell. Although the genetics are the same, the expression changes making them look and behave differently.But I think meiosis is a better pun… and here’s to obsessive over-analysis!
I wonder if meowsis is as noisy as the better-known form of cat reproduction? O.o
…not to mention that punwise, meiosis is a far better match for me-ow-sis than mitosis!
It’s obviously a pun on meiosis. I know that not everyone reads text phonetically, but come on. Now, that said, the “identical creatures” bit is still confuzzling.
Our grad office has already threatened to write an entire grammar and style book on lolcat and then teach alls the freshman writing courses in lolcat.
I assumed it was a pun on meiosis as well, though the identical creatures thing throws me off.Also, this: “Perhaps the result of meowsis II would be a HALPloid kitteh?” is full of WIN! =D
I thought the same thing and I’m an English student. Must have been that bioanthropology class I took.
Since the one on the right is smaller this is obviously an example of the well known budding cat.
Meowsis, absolutely brilliant. It could also be a form of budding (like a hydra). Also remember that genetically identical doesn’t mean phenotypically identical :). Oh no… I already crossed over. I switched majors damn it! *sigh*
As Hans said earlier, it can be mitosis and not give rise to identical cats…the expression patterns of the same genome can be different depending on the tissue, so obviously this is simply the development of the lolcat tissue with different cell types…perhaps snoozecat and grumpcat.
Testing…